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Speaker 1: Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making

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Speaker 1: of what is sure to be one of the most

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Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?

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Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. But

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Speaker 1: we want to start with those comments from the President

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Speaker 1: when he was overseas in Europe. So in addition to

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Speaker 1: calling Putin a butcher, he ad libed a comment that

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Speaker 1: seemed to imply the US had a potential policy of

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Speaker 1: regime change in Russia. Let's take a listen to both

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Speaker 1: of those moments. And you're, you know, you're dealing every

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Speaker 1: day with Vladimir Putin, and look at what he's done

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Speaker 1: to these people. What does it make you think he's

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Speaker 1: a butcher locate. Thank you, guys, thank you, thank you

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Speaker 1: for God's sake, this man cannot remain power. God bless

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Speaker 1: you all, and may God defend our freedom and may

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Speaker 1: God protect our truth. Thank you for your patience, Thank you,

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Speaker 1: thank you. So he ad libs there, this man cannot

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Speaker 1: remain in power. Now this feeds directly into Putin's own

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Speaker 1: propaganda that the real goal here of the US is

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Speaker 1: regime change, and of course, given our track record of

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Speaker 1: regime change around the world, that is less of a

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Speaker 1: crazy thing to imagine than you might think. Add on

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Speaker 1: top of that the fact that you have aids, as

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Speaker 1: we discussed last week, who are saying at private events,

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Speaker 1: you know, the only end game here really is Putin

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Speaker 1: ount of power. And you start to create a narrative

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Speaker 1: of what is really going on behind the scenes in

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Speaker 1: terms of the discussion that high level officials are having

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Speaker 1: about how they actually think this will all end. Because

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Speaker 1: what have we been talking about. You have to create

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Speaker 1: the conditions for peace, you have to create an off rip,

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Speaker 1: you have to create pressure so that there are negotiations. Instead,

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Speaker 1: all we've had is escalation, making it much more difficult

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Speaker 1: for this thing ultimately to be resolved in negotiations which

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Speaker 1: are going to be painful and which are going to

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Speaker 1: be difficult. How are you going to welcome back into

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Speaker 1: the community of nations someone who you have said is

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Speaker 1: a butcher and a war criminal, and who you have

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Speaker 1: gone out and publicly said you want to see out

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Speaker 1: of power, that he quote cannot remain in power. Well,

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Speaker 1: the White House clearly knows what a problem this ad

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Speaker 1: lib statement ultimately was kind of giving up the game

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Speaker 1: of what the Biden administration is actually wanting. And we're

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Speaker 1: not saying like tanks on the ground in Russia, but

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Speaker 1: the economic sanctions and the pressure being put on the

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Speaker 1: state in a foolish hope and naive hope that this

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Speaker 1: is ultimately going to push Putin out of power. So

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Speaker 1: here's the White House statement, immediately backtracking, trying to spin this,

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Speaker 1: saying the presence point was that Putin cannot be allowed

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Speaker 1: to exercise power over his neighbors or the region. He

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Speaker 1: was not discussing Putin's power in Russia or regime change. Listen,

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Speaker 1: we all heard what he was saying. And again, this

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Speaker 1: isn't the first time that word has slipped out from

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Speaker 1: this administration. That what they really think the endgame here

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Speaker 1: should be should be Putin out of power. This only

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Speaker 1: strengthens Vladimir Putin's hand domestically and makes escalation and more

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Speaker 1: brutality and more death more likely. Yeah, that's right. And look,

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Speaker 1: we are not about placating Putin. What we're talking about

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Speaker 1: is mitigating the risk of a nuclear exchange. I don't

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Speaker 1: know how many times I have to reiterate it here.

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Speaker 1: I'm not a genius. It is written in Russian nuclear doctrine,

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Speaker 1: as reiterated by Dmitri Peskov, the spokesperson for the Kremlin,

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Speaker 1: that they will and have the option to launch nuclear

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Speaker 1: weapons in the events of a threat to the direct

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Speaker 1: power of the Putin regime. This goes all the way

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Speaker 1: back to the days of the Soviet Union. This is incredibly,

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Speaker 1: incredibly destabilizing. And also the word butcher in particular. Let's remember,

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Speaker 1: when is the last time that we started using butcher

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Speaker 1: against a despot in order to launch a war Crystal

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Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein, the butcher of Baghdad. That's exactly what the

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Speaker 1: Bush administration said over and over again. Saddam Hussein, He's what. Look,

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Speaker 1: that's true, I mean, that's empirically true, was it worth

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Speaker 1: the Iraq war. I'll let you be the judge and

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Speaker 1: the decider of that one. I personally would say the

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Speaker 1: other way. That's why I think that these comments are

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Speaker 1: so clearly reveal both the quiet part out loud of

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Speaker 1: what the Biden administration is thinking, but also the worst

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Speaker 1: of all worlds because now he said it and then

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Speaker 1: they pull it back. So now we're in this weird

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Speaker 1: strategic ambiguity where like, what is happening? What is the

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Speaker 1: policy of the United States? And it happens at the

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Speaker 1: same time, there was a very odd clip in which

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Speaker 1: Biden was speaking to the eighty second Airborne Division, some

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Speaker 1: guys who are about to deploy over to Europe, intimating

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Speaker 1: that they may be deployed to Ukraine. We had a

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Speaker 1: little bit of video from that. Let's take a listen,

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Speaker 1: and you're going to see when you're there. Have you

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Speaker 1: been there? You're going to see. You're going to see women,

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Speaker 1: young people stand on a stand in the middle of

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Speaker 1: the front of damn tank. It's just saying I'm not leaving,

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Speaker 1: I'm holding to my ground. Are incredible? What what is

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Speaker 1: he saying? Is he? I mean they tried to clean

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Speaker 1: it up, saying, oh, he's talking about refugees, and I

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Speaker 1: was is he? I mean, what's happening here? You're talking

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Speaker 1: there to members of the US Armed Forces who are

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Speaker 1: deploying over there. You combine that with an explicit declaration

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Speaker 1: of regime change from the President of the United States.

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are real things that have real consequences,

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Speaker 1: validating the worst fears of the Putin regime. This could

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Speaker 1: very much be the pretext of which they completely break

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Speaker 1: off relations between us. How are we supposed to have

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Speaker 1: any diplomatic resolution at this point? Now you might say, oh,

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Speaker 1: you know, you guys are playing into the Russian hands,

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Speaker 1: and you know it's a but it's not about being

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Speaker 1: soft or even about strength in this particular key, it's

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Speaker 1: what's the strategy, What is the endgame? And if the

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Speaker 1: endgame from the administration, as Neil Ferguson has been writing,

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Speaker 1: is a de facto policy of regime change and a

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Speaker 1: complete rejection of Vladimir Putin's regime from the Community of

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Speaker 1: Nations for all time, then what incentive do the Russians

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Speaker 1: have in order to stop the war in Ukraine? I

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Speaker 1: would remind everyone Zolensky, President Zelenski did an interview last

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Speaker 1: night with Russian journalists where he said, we are quote

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Speaker 1: ready to discuss neutrality. There is an off ramp in Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: Zelensky is ready opening talking about NATO, talking about neutrality,

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Speaker 1: said he's not going to leave in opening the door

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Speaker 1: to peace talks. But the West, as it was from

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Speaker 1: the very beginning, is making it very, very difficult for

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Speaker 1: the situation on the ground there to come to any

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Speaker 1: sort of resolution before hundreds of thousands of people die. Well.

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Speaker 1: And what Putin has been telling his people, this is

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Speaker 1: the propaganda coming from the Krumblin, is they want to

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Speaker 1: destroy Russia. They're going to levy sanctions and they're not

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Speaker 1: going to go away no matter what. And so when

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Speaker 1: our president makes comments like these, you are just validating

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Speaker 1: the narrative that Vladimir Putin has been selling to his people,

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Speaker 1: and you only strengthen his hand and make it even

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Speaker 1: less likely that he ultimately is going to be removed

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Speaker 1: from power. I think it's incredibly foolish and naive to

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Speaker 1: think that there is anything close to the conditions to

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Speaker 1: seeing the end of the Putin regime. So if this

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Speaker 1: is indeed their calculation, they're a bunch of fools and idiots,

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Speaker 1: because that is nowhere close to happening. So all you've

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Speaker 1: done is you've made it so much more difficult to

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Speaker 1: see the end, see any kind of a resolution to

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Speaker 1: the current war. You've made it much more likely that

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Speaker 1: you could ultimately have an escalation outside of Ukraine that

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Speaker 1: leads to a hot war, that leads to a confrontation,

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Speaker 1: a direct military confrontation between two nuclear powers. Look, do

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Speaker 1: we want to see Putin out of power? Of course

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Speaker 1: we do. Of course we do. He is guilty of

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Speaker 1: all the crimes that he is being accused of. No

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Speaker 1: one is saying otherwise. But when you're president of the

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Speaker 1: United States, this is a different deal, and your words

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Speaker 1: really matter. I seem to recall Joe Biden talking about

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Speaker 1: exactly that when you as running for president. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is a sort of Trumpian just like off to

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Speaker 1: the cuff, like saying whatever happens to stumble into your

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Speaker 1: brain at that moment, without any consideration of what the

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Speaker 1: impact and the ramifications are ultimately going to be. There

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Speaker 1: was a quote from you know, this isn't just like

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Speaker 1: our thinking. There are a lot of sort of mainstream

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Speaker 1: experts in this town who were very distressed by these comments.

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Speaker 1: Washington Post had a quote from Michael O'Hanlon. He's a

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Speaker 1: senior fellow the Brooking Institution. He said that he was

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Speaker 1: trying to runcover for him, but he said Biden's head

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be in a place where he's saying Putin must go.

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Speaker 1: The only way to get to war termination is to

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Speaker 1: negotiate with this guy. And when you say this guy

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Speaker 1: must go, you've essentially declared you're not going to do

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Speaker 1: business with him. However appealing at an emotional level, it's

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Speaker 1: not going to happen. We can't control it and it

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Speaker 1: probably won't take place anytime soon. How are you going

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Speaker 1: to do business with this person? How are you gonna

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Speaker 1: have negotiations? How are you gonna roll back sanctions when

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Speaker 1: you've said he's a butcher, he's a war criminal, and

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Speaker 1: that he and power must end. Yeah, and how are

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Speaker 1: allies reacting? Not great? Us put this up there on

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Speaker 1: the screen. President Macron doing his best to say, let's

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Speaker 1: not have quote escalation after Biden brands Putin a butcher.

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Speaker 1: The French leader told broadcaster France three he saw his

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Speaker 1: task as achieving first a ceasefire and then the total

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Speaker 1: withdrawal of Russian troops by diplomatic means, quote, if we

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Speaker 1: want to do that, we can't escalate, either in words

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Speaker 1: or in action. So the actual diplomat on the European continent,

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Speaker 1: the people with all a lot at stake here, are

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Speaker 1: not too happy with President Biden's comments. So Biden clearly

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Speaker 1: got taken in at the emotional moment of being there

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Speaker 1: and seeing the refugees. And look, I think that's a

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Speaker 1: good thing for the president to go and see those people.

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Speaker 1: But you're also supposed to keep a levelhead and keep

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Speaker 1: all of us safe here at home. So there is

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Speaker 1: no way to describe this utter than a complete diplomatic catastrophe,

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Speaker 1: the likes of the ramifications of which we are only

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Speaker 1: beginning to see. The Kremlin is obviously going to react

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Speaker 1: in its most maximalist way possible. This is the best

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Speaker 1: thing that could have ever happened to Russian propaganda. This

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Speaker 1: is going to absolutely hurt any peace efforts between Russia

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Speaker 1: and with Ukraine, and he has made us all significantly

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Speaker 1: less safe. I mean, look, everybody says, oh, people are

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Speaker 1: fear mongering around in nuclear confrontation once again. If the

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Speaker 1: chance is one percent. That's way too high, and I

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Speaker 1: think it's a lot more than one percent given the

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Speaker 1: state of these comments, given the ability for escalation to occur.

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Speaker 1: I don't know what he's talking about there with the

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Speaker 1: eighty second Airborne. You know, there's a lot of reporting

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Speaker 1: about what's happening in Poland at these bases in terms

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Speaker 1: of military assets and us up being moved forward. I'm

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Speaker 1: not saying that they're going to be moving into Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: but what are they doing? What's happening? I mean, these

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Speaker 1: are all things which can go awry very quickly. Don't

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Speaker 1: listen to me, Listen to the generals who we have

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Speaker 1: quoted here before, who've even said, look, you have young guys,

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Speaker 1: and these pilots, and the ramifications of these things can

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Speaker 1: escalate significantly. All it takes is one person accidentally fly

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Speaker 1: across the border for two seconds gets shot down. Now

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Speaker 1: we're in a whole other situation. And how are we

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Speaker 1: supposed to talk to each other? If he branded the

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Speaker 1: man a butcher and he said that he shouldn't remain

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Speaker 1: in power, this is exactly the rhetorical conditions which led

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Speaker 1: to the invasion of Iraq. And I think we should

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Speaker 1: all be very, very skeptical, and not just skeptical, but

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Speaker 1: we should really be afraid and caution our government officials

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Speaker 1: from using this type of language, given what has happened

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Speaker 1: to our country in the most recent memory of the

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Speaker 1: last time these people were in charge. One of the

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Speaker 1: selling points of Biden during the campaign was like the

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Speaker 1: grown ups, adults, The adults are going to be back

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Speaker 1: in the room. We're going to handle things. We're going

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Speaker 1: to do it in a measured and strategic way. And

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Speaker 1: so when you just off the cuff. I mean, we've

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Speaker 1: had a couple of different moments. Now we didn't even

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Speaker 1: talk about you know, he got asked about, Okay, what

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Speaker 1: if they what if there's a chemical weapons attack? That's right,

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Speaker 1: and he says, we'll respond in kind. What are you

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Speaker 1: floating chemical weapons attack on rush again the White they

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Speaker 1: had to clean it up. They of course he's not

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Speaker 1: floating that. Of course that's not what he meant. But

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Speaker 1: how can you have one after another of these comments

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Speaker 1: that the last thing you want to do is back

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Speaker 1: putin into a corner where he feels that his only

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Speaker 1: option is to escalate, that there is no off ramp

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Speaker 1: that doesn't involve him out of power or complete in

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Speaker 1: total humiliation, because that's that's the disaster scenario we all

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Speaker 1: have to be doing everything we can to try to avoid.

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Speaker 1: When you openly float regime change, you are making that

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Speaker 1: outcome that much more likely, and it is just pure catastrophy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the nightmare scenario, what we talked about on our Thursday show,

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Speaker 1: is that the Russians use some sort of small, tactical

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Speaker 1: new weapon. And when I say small, I just mean

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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands, not millions of people who are dead,

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Speaker 1: not actually small. And then you know the US which

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Speaker 1: has already said a senior administration official that quote, all

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Speaker 1: gloves are off. If that happens, we don't actually have

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Speaker 1: a treaty obligation to do so. So there would be

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Speaker 1: a huge split in the global community. It would shatter,

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Speaker 1: you know, all of the conventions around the use of

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Speaker 1: weapons themselves, and the next thing you know, you end

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Speaker 1: up in a very messy conflict with the US population

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Speaker 1: and the global population split on what exactly should do,

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Speaker 1: and hundreds of millions of people could die. I mean,

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Speaker 1: once again, it's unlikely, but it's certainly within the realm

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Speaker 1: of possibility. And he's making that even more likely. There's

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Speaker 1: a reason that we treat all of the language around

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Speaker 1: these things with extreme caution. And I actually worse, I

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Speaker 1: don't think this is a senior moment for Biden. This

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Speaker 1: is who he is. This is mister They're going to

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Speaker 1: put you back in chains, mister gaff for you know,

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Speaker 1: for the the entirety of his career. This is the man.

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Speaker 1: This is exactly who he is. If you go and

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Speaker 1: you read about him all the way back from the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties. He has an extreme

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Speaker 1: narcissistic faith in his own ability in order to read

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Speaker 1: the moment, read the room, doesn't care what his age think,

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Speaker 1: and hates the media for criticizing him, and it's because

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Speaker 1: of that, but he has now put us all in

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Speaker 1: a much more dangerous situation as president. So I really

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Speaker 1: that's the only way we can hope to describe it.

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Speaker 1: At this point, all he had to do was freaking

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Speaker 1: read the speech like that's it. That's is that so hard?

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Speaker 1: Just like read the freaking speech off the teleprompter. This

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Speaker 1: is another significant one that I wanted to bring attention to.

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Speaker 1: A key indicator that has predicted recessions consistently since the

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, is now once again signaling we might be

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Speaker 1: headed towards a recession. However, there are some caveats. I

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Speaker 1: don't want people to panic yet, go ahead and put

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Speaker 1: this up on the screen. Five year and thirty year

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Speaker 1: treasury yields invert for the first time since two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six, fueling recession fears. I don't know if you

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Speaker 1: guys have heard this term before, but oftentimes people talk

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Speaker 1: about inverted bond yields. Basically, to make this as simple

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Speaker 1: as possible, typically the further you go out on the

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Speaker 1: time horizon, the higher return you're going to get. This

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Speaker 1: basic time value of money. If you're willing to hold

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Speaker 1: an instrument for a long time, you're rewarded with the

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Speaker 1: higher industry that's sort of the typical that's the typical

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Speaker 1: bond yield, and we're talking about US Treasury bonds here specifically.

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Speaker 1: So when things are out of whack and investors are

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Speaker 1: very worried about the longer term prospects for an economy,

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Speaker 1: then sometimes you get funky situations in the bond yield

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Speaker 1: curve where it doesn't just consistently go up over time.

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Speaker 1: They call that an inverted bond yield. Now, usually when

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Speaker 1: you're thinking about recessions, the ones that investors usually look

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Speaker 1: at are the two and the ten year bond yields.

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Speaker 1: Those have not inverted yet, although there has been significant

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Speaker 1: flattening across the entire curve. Right now, it is the

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Speaker 1: five year and thirty year bond yields that have inverted.

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Speaker 1: So if you understand nothing else, just know that this

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Speaker 1: metric signals that the economy is out of whack and

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Speaker 1: people are concerned about the future. That's basically what this means.

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Speaker 1: The history is also quite clear, So the two and

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Speaker 1: ten year treasury yield curves, that's the one that I

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Speaker 1: just said people typically look at that hasn't inverted yet,

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Speaker 1: but is a lot of flattening. Those inverted before the

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Speaker 1: last seven recessions since nineteen seventy. However, the data also

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Speaker 1: suggests a recession is unlikely to be imminent when you

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Speaker 1: do have a bond yield curve inversion. It took seventeen

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Speaker 1: months after the bond market inversion for a downturn to start.

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Speaker 1: On average, on the flip side, there has been at

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Speaker 1: least one, some would say two false alarms where the

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Speaker 1: bond yield curve inverted and you did not end up

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Speaker 1: in a recession. The one that they're very consistent and

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Speaker 1: clear about is nineteen ninety eight. The other caveat that

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Speaker 1: I'll put on this that people who are way smarter

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Speaker 1: and understand this way more than I do. We're saying

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Speaker 1: is that it's not clear how much information these bond

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Speaker 1: yields contain anymore because the Fed has so has gone

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Speaker 1: into the market, is so influential at the market. In

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Speaker 1: the market at this point, it's effectively it's not really

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Speaker 1: a free market anymore. It's effectively sort of rigged. So

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Speaker 1: how much information does this really contain about how investors

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Speaker 1: feel about the future of the economy and the shape

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Speaker 1: of where we're headed in terms of recession. Hard to

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Speaker 1: say at this point. But again, this is a key metric.

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Speaker 1: It has consistently had predictive power in terms of whether

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Speaker 1: you're going to head into a recession over the next

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Speaker 1: year and a half or so, and right now it

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Speaker 1: has inverted for the first time since two thousand and six.

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Speaker 1: Right and I believe the Federal Reserve Chairman he was

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Speaker 1: pressed on this in Congress. Let's take a listen. Is

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Speaker 1: the leadership at the FED under you, and the FED

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Speaker 1: prepared to do what it takes to get inflation under

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Speaker 1: control and protects price stability. Well, let me say I

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Speaker 1: knew Paul Vulker. I'm pretty sure I saw him testify

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Speaker 1: in this room many years ago. I think he was

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Speaker 1: one of the great public servants of the era, the

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Speaker 1: greatest economic public servant in the era, and I hope

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Speaker 1: history will record that the answer to your question is yes, So,

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Speaker 1: your aunt, you're prepared to do what it takes without

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Speaker 1: any reservation to protect price stability. Yes, that would be

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Speaker 1: a departure of what you've done, Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: So this was Fed Chair Jerome Powell getting pressed on

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Speaker 1: how serious he's going to be getting inflation under control.

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Speaker 1: And why this is relevant is because obviously the Fed

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Speaker 1: they just announced their first rate increase, and there's worry

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Speaker 1: that they could move too quickly, lift the rates too

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Speaker 1: fast in an effort to get inflation under control and

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Speaker 1: spark a recession. What he's saying there, he's like, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, I love Paul Vulgar. He's amazing. He's a hero,

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Speaker 1: he's a role model. Vulgar is the sort of storied

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Speaker 1: FED Reserve chair who aggressively raised rates during the seventies

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Speaker 1: to curb inflation at that point, and so Paal is saying,

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Speaker 1: this is my model. I'm going to do what it

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Speaker 1: takes to get price you know, to focus on prices

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Speaker 1: and get inflation under control. And the subtext is, even

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Speaker 1: if it causes a really brutal recession, because while you

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Speaker 1: know at this point and said, oh, Volkler did the

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Speaker 1: right thing, it's easy to forget how painful it was.

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Speaker 1: Time horrible, Yeah, because when you lift interest rates at

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Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're intentionally slowing down the economy.

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Speaker 1: So he says, yes, I'm fully committed effectively to getting

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Speaker 1: inflation under control, even if it causes the recession. As

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Speaker 1: kind of the subtext of what he is saying there, now,

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Speaker 1: the actions have not necessarily been totally consistent with that.

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Speaker 1: He was under some pressure, There were under some pressure

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Speaker 1: to lift rates more, to do so more quickly, to

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Speaker 1: act before they even did, and so there's been an

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Speaker 1: attempt to be sort of like moderated in their actions here.

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Speaker 1: So we haven't seen that sparkle recession right now, but

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Speaker 1: you have more and more analysts who feared that we

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Speaker 1: could be had in that true. Yeah, My authority on

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Speaker 1: this is Joe Wisenthal over at Boomberg. I really look

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Speaker 1: to him on a lot of this, and it seems

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Speaker 1: to be that there's been a split the difference approach

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Speaker 1: at the FED. The FED has a dual mandate full

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Speaker 1: employment and inflation. Now, inflation is what obviously, you know,

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Speaker 1: people in the upper tier care the most about. I'm

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Speaker 1: not erasing exactly how it impacts the working class, but

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Speaker 1: I'm saying that it's generally more of an elite concern

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Speaker 1: amongst like conservatives and Republicans, just because of the way

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Speaker 1: it can affect markets up at the top and interest

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Speaker 1: rates as well, which affects capital, which is what these

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Speaker 1: people care the most about. And in terms of what's

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Speaker 1: happening there is that there's an immense amount of pressure

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Speaker 1: in order to do something about inflation. And that becomes

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Speaker 1: then a question of what is the cause of inflation?

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Speaker 1: Is it monetary policy or is it a supply chain

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Speaker 1: problem and a problem in the downstream economy. Now your

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Speaker 1: view of those two things, I personally think it's much

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Speaker 1: more the supply chain will then lead you to whether

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Speaker 1: you have the monetary instrument that you can reach for

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Speaker 1: the only thing that they can reach for there in

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Speaker 1: order to slow the economy down is increasing the interest rate.

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Speaker 1: So their acceptance and saying they're going to increase the

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Speaker 1: interest rate at least in part right now and over

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Speaker 1: the course of the next couple of years or so

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Speaker 1: is very much about in that direction. But they're not

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Speaker 1: fully bowing to what the I guess the most monetary

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Speaker 1: hawks would like them to do. People like Richard Shelby there.

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Speaker 1: People like Richard Shelby is a perfect example. He's the

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Speaker 1: chair of the Senate Banking Committee, so that I think

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Speaker 1: the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee next to

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Speaker 1: be the chair, So obviously he matters a lot. He

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Speaker 1: was instrumental in COVID relief in not necessarily great ways.

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Speaker 1: The reason why it matters for you is because if

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Speaker 1: the instrot rate goes up and there is a recession

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Speaker 1: cause which then causes the amount of cheap capital in

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Speaker 1: order to stop flowing around the system, the rich people

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Speaker 1: will suffer in terms of the stock portfolios. But you're

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Speaker 1: the one who's going to lose your job, and you're

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Speaker 1: the one who's going to see downward pressure, especially under wages.

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Speaker 1: But even worse you're going to see it in terms

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Speaker 1: of the supply problems already exists with the economy whenever

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Speaker 1: it comes to price. So I would just say that

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Speaker 1: this is a real catastrophe anytime I see and I

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Speaker 1: don't mean the FED changing rates necessarily. I'm just saying

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Speaker 1: the current situation, the arrow is pointing in the wrong direction.

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Speaker 1: I'm doing my monologue today on China, and it's COVID

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Speaker 1: zero policy causing even more inflation. The amount of uncertainty

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Speaker 1: right now in the global economy just makes me incredibly,

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Speaker 1: incredibly nervous. It's very like two thousand and seven vibes

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Speaker 1: about what could be happening here. I think that's all

431
00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:31,119
Speaker 1: well said. And what you're pointing to is that, you know,

432
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:34,600
Speaker 1: in an ideal functioning political system, you would have a

433
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:37,080
Speaker 1: range of tools available to deal with the type of

434
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 1: inflation we're experiencing right now, which does have a lot

435
00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 1: to do with supply chain issues, with the fact that

436
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:46,159
Speaker 1: we had, you know, relief checks hit people's pockets and

437
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: they weren't able to fully partake in like the service economy,

438
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,359
Speaker 1: so there's more purchasing of goods. There are some signs

439
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 1: that some of those factors are beginning to ease, even

440
00:22:56,600 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: as you have other catastrophic situations unfolding that are only

441
00:23:00,760 --> 00:23:03,879
Speaker 1: exacerbating things. So in an ideal and perfect system, you

442
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 1: would have a political system that could actually like pass

443
00:23:07,640 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 1: legislation and spend money to deal with the supply chain issue.

444
00:23:11,320 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 1: I don't mean by just like, you know, giving people

445
00:23:13,320 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 1: more money. I mean by investing in the infrastructure and

446
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:20,400
Speaker 1: expanding port capabilities to try to resolve these supply chain issues.

447
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 1: That would be the ideal system. Well, since the political

448
00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 1: system is so broken, the only tool that's effectively left

449
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,399
Speaker 1: is this sort of like blunt force instrument of the FED,

450
00:23:30,840 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 1: which I mean we basically know in no uncertain terms

451
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 1: if they move too fast it will cause a recession.

452
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 1: So that's the terrible landscape that we are faced with

453
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,320
Speaker 1: right now, and I feel like every week there's another

454
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: sign that potentially we are headed in that direction, with

455
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: the bond yield curve and version here just being the

456
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:58,119
Speaker 1: latest one. There's a new HBO Max documentary that happens

457
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:00,240
Speaker 1: to feature a little bit of yours truly. Yeah, but

458
00:24:00,280 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 1: that's not the reason to talk about. It's called Gaming

459
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:07,159
Speaker 1: Wall Street, and it tracks the entire game stop situation

460
00:24:07,359 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: attempt to sort of pushback on Wall Street, hedge funds

461
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:14,680
Speaker 1: and titans who normally run everything both on Wall Street

462
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:16,680
Speaker 1: and frankly in the country at large. And we're happy

463
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 1: to be joined now by the producer of that documentary,

464
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 1: Tobias Demo joins us now. Great to see it, Tobias,

465
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:27,199
Speaker 1: to see you, man Hey, great to be here. So

466
00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:30,440
Speaker 1: we've got a little bit of the trailer from Gaming

467
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 1: Wall Street. Let's take a look at that ever sina

468
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 1: here a group of stocks that you can no longer

469
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: add to. There is a lot of emotion here. All

470
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:42,400
Speaker 1: of this range definitely the worst point in my life.

471
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:44,399
Speaker 1: What can we do to give a voice to this?

472
00:24:45,040 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: The GameStop frenzy ripped the curtain of how grig hard

473
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: markets really are. They forced the broader public to start

474
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 1: asking questions that they've never really asked before. And it's

475
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 1: not just one firm, two firm, three firms, it's all

476
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 1: the firms that commit capital and that cracked open fold investigation.

477
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:07,920
Speaker 1: Wall Street has been making money out of thin air,

478
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:14,680
Speaker 1: so that's basically stealing right. The level of illegal activities

479
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:19,159
Speaker 1: just astonishing, girl. The market does get manipulated in a

480
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,159
Speaker 1: lot of ways that we don't see. How do you

481
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:23,359
Speaker 1: play a game when someone else makes the rules so

482
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:26,719
Speaker 1: one can sheet and you'll never know. It's intentionally hidden

483
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: from you that you can't see where the problems really lies.

484
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:32,080
Speaker 1: This is the one chance to blow up the deskto

485
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: I don't even care who the whistleblower is. That's why

486
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 1: it's important that people come forward. This is just the beginning.

487
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 1: So Tobias as a filmmaker, what was it about this

488
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:58,000
Speaker 1: story and what happened with game stop that you thought

489
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,320
Speaker 1: would be compelling for an audience? Great question. So I

490
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,639
Speaker 1: started this actually as a niche documentary about Wall Street

491
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: bets and this crazy little world online where all these

492
00:26:07,880 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 1: people were having their own investing journey and just simplifying

493
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:14,439
Speaker 1: very very complicated finance topics. And that was one of

494
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: my entry points to learning about investing. My dad has

495
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: a long activism investor ESG kind of background, and I

496
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,280
Speaker 1: always kind of felt stupid. And so finally, during the

497
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: pandemic ad time, like millions of others who just got

498
00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: interested in investing, and then you know, I was like, oh,

499
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:31,880
Speaker 1: this is just great online community, and suddenly game stup

500
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 1: is one of the crazy things in Wall Street bets

501
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:35,680
Speaker 1: that just blows up and becomes a number one headline,

502
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: And so we knew that we had to do the

503
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: doc right then. But as we kept going, we just

504
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: kept going deeper and deeper into this wild world of

505
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 1: Wall Street and Yeah, so that was much more compelling

506
00:26:46,800 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: stuff once we started actually working on it. Yeah. I

507
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: think the most important part about your film is when

508
00:26:50,880 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: we actually interview a lot of the people on Wall

509
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 1: Street and how they saw it as a commentary itself,

510
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: Can you describe that for the audience and just like

511
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: what exactly you found at the bottom of that. Yeah,

512
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 1: So the deeper we went, the more we started kind

513
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: of asking these really important questions. So we partnered up

514
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,400
Speaker 1: with Buildmore Films, you know, and I as a director,

515
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:13,000
Speaker 1: I needed to get real experts on the producing team, right.

516
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: So my producer Tessa, who's been there from day zero.

517
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: She's a great storyteller and knows a lot about the

518
00:27:18,600 --> 00:27:20,919
Speaker 1: human stories and the sort of big picture components. But

519
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: we wanted to really make sure that we would tell

520
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: this super accurate and deeply research story. So we teamed

521
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 1: that with Buildmore Films was run by a hedge fund manager,

522
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,480
Speaker 1: John Victorn and a securities analyst Bercoons. So John at

523
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:34,359
Speaker 1: Burke they really know what's up on Wall Street and

524
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: have all these insider connections, and so I said, look,

525
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,439
Speaker 1: there's all these conspiracy theories on Reddit, like this crazy

526
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,399
Speaker 1: like naked chart selling it's definitely like bullshit, right, And

527
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,280
Speaker 1: they're like, no, it's actually totally real. And the more

528
00:27:45,320 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 1: that we started really digging into it, the more I

529
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: started realizing how fragile the system is and how easy

530
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 1: it is for certain players, like you said, the Titans

531
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 1: that usually run the show, how easy it is for

532
00:27:56,240 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: them to actually abuse the rules and the system that

533
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 1: they've sort of helped construct. And so that was one

534
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,119
Speaker 1: of the biggest takeaways is that some of these things

535
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: are so far beyond the surface that you really have

536
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 1: to go dig, you have to expose it, and then

537
00:28:08,160 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: you have to kind of, you know, put the responsibility

538
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: on the regulators and the larger forces to be to

539
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: actually correct this. Yeah. I mean that's what was so compelling,

540
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: both at the time watching this all unfold and also

541
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: watching your documentary is you had this moment where it

542
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: seemed like it was actually working, Like you had this

543
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,879
Speaker 1: sort of like mass distributed movement of people who are like,

544
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 1: screw you, you all rig the system all the time.

545
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:36,800
Speaker 1: We're going to make this play. We're in it, We're

546
00:28:36,800 --> 00:28:39,480
Speaker 1: doing it. It's happening. The price of Game Stop, which

547
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: is like, you know, not really poised for great success

548
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: in the future, probably continues to go up and up

549
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: and up. That's probably gonna be controversial, get mad and

550
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:50,880
Speaker 1: up and up, right, not exactly what you would think

551
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: is like the stock of the future. Let's just put

552
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: it that way. And then what happens Robinhood app which

553
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: is what has enabled all these retail investors to be

554
00:28:59,520 --> 00:29:01,400
Speaker 1: able to sort of get in the game and make

555
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: these trades. They've got relationships with these hedge funds, and

556
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:09,479
Speaker 1: they decide that they're going to stop allowing people to

557
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: buy just this handful of sort of meme stocks. Right,

558
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: you're still allowed to sell them, so you're allowed to

559
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: put downward pressure on the price, but you're not allowed

560
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: to buy them anymore. And frankly, it worked. Part of

561
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: what's heartbreaking about the film is that you interview some

562
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: of the people who really, you know, they lost money

563
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: that was significant to them. And these were oftentimes people

564
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 1: who'd already been fucked over by our financial system during

565
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: the housing crisis, who had lost homes or lived through

566
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: their parents losing their homes and being foreclosed on. And

567
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 1: here they thought, this is one little way to you know,

568
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: push back on this rigg system and say screw you

569
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: to Wall Street. And in the end, the big guys

570
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 1: still won. Yeah. This was one of the interesting takeaways,

571
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: right that as we go deeper into the story, you

572
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: have brokers like Robinhood that shut down, right, and as

573
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 1: we peel back the layers, like why did they shut down? Right,

574
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of different possibilities what might have also happened, right,

575
00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 1: these additional interests, But the primary thing was really the DTCC,

576
00:30:11,760 --> 00:30:14,160
Speaker 1: the sort of central plumbing system, saying look, you gotta

577
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 1: pay three billion dollars. But they knew ahead of time

578
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: that Robinhood would not have that money. They could totally

579
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: predict what the situation was going to be. And there's

580
00:30:22,320 --> 00:30:24,040
Speaker 1: a responsible way to say, hey, we have a real

581
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: big problem in the market. Let's talk with the SEC.

582
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: Let's talk with the markets and figure out what's going on.

583
00:30:28,720 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: But instead the TTCC sort of said you're on your own.

584
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: Let's just see what happens, and I think that's one

585
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 1: of these things in the system, right, Who are these

586
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: different players? The DTCC is a privately owned corporation. It

587
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: runs the entire system. There's very little accounting and transparency

588
00:30:43,720 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: there to the outside world. And we talked to Harvey Pitt,

589
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: former chairman of the SEC, and one of his sort

590
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,080
Speaker 1: of striking quotes is, you know, the DTCC is so

591
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: powerful and so centralized, and there's so little insight. And

592
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: he used to run the SEC, the regulator himself, right,

593
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: And so there's there's a lot of pieces to the

594
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: system that need reform. That's one of the sort of

595
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: biggest the biggest takeaways. And then the individual people who

596
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:09,360
Speaker 1: got screwed really by the buy button being shut off.

597
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: It helped certain players that this by button was off, right,

598
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: There were certain players like Citadel that were very likely

599
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: exposed very strongly to the short side and possibly survived

600
00:31:21,680 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: only because of this shutdown. And that part of the

601
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: story has never been told, has never been properly investigated, right.

602
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: The SEC report did never go into that, and so

603
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,200
Speaker 1: with the documentary we went into all of these questions.

604
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: We said, what happened to Melvin Capital's position, right, they

605
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,000
Speaker 1: got out of the stock, But what does this really mean?

606
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 1: And so there's all these fascinating stories of what what

607
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 1: Melvin did with their with their position, what happened at

608
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: citadel Ands. We tried to shine to light on all

609
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, I think that's what is the most

610
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: important thing, at least I learned. I think it was

611
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: an opening for a lot of people, which I always

612
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: try to emphasize is I was like, look, it's free

613
00:31:55,960 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: to trade, but that just means that you're not the customer,

614
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:00,800
Speaker 1: you are the product. And people are up selling in

615
00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: front running your trades, were big guys, and they're making

616
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: a whole lot more money than you actually are. So

617
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: what do you think the takeaway was for the average

618
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:11,440
Speaker 1: redditor Wall Street? You know, kind of Wall Street Bets person.

619
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,040
Speaker 1: I've been a redditor for like, you know, twelve years

620
00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:15,920
Speaker 1: or something like that. It was kind of natural for

621
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: me to kind of That's why I saw this bubbling

622
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: up early, I think. But I'm curious what the feeling

623
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: in the takeaway was for a lot of those people

624
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: who you talk to as well. For many of them,

625
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: it was I think their first real experience at seeing

626
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: market structure in play. And I think for many people

627
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: on Wall Street it was that experience as well. Right,

628
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,959
Speaker 1: you can work on Wall Street for twenty years, nobody's

629
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,760
Speaker 1: ever seen that, right, Like John says in the documentary,

630
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: you know, he's never seen a basket of stocks just

631
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: being taken away on the You can no longer add

632
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:46,840
Speaker 1: to that position. And I think for many people you

633
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: started seeing. And I think that as Keller puts this

634
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: great right, it like rips the curtain off the system,

635
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 1: and it shows you all the dirty gears and wheels

636
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:56,480
Speaker 1: in the back, and who is making decisions and why.

637
00:32:57,440 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: And I think for many people it was incredibly frustrating experience.

638
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: But if we take one step further back, I think

639
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 1: what it truly represented was a show of power and

640
00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:09,520
Speaker 1: a show of force by the retail crowd, right by

641
00:33:09,520 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: the individual people who said, I will stand up against

642
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: the system that screwed me two thousand and eight, and

643
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: a system that pretends or believes that they're all powerful.

644
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: But in this one instance, we put this tiny bit

645
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,760
Speaker 1: of pressure on this one little stock or this group

646
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: of stocks AMC, GM, ME and so on, and suddenly

647
00:33:26,640 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: the entire market goes bananas. And I think that was

648
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: ridiculed by a lot of the larger media outlets. Oh

649
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 1: there's just a bunch of crazy people online. This was

650
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: the first instance where the system really saw, hey, we

651
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,440
Speaker 1: can't screw around with those people, right, Like, these people

652
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: will have power, and that power is only going to

653
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: increase from here on out right. It's all about the literacy.

654
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: The more that you know about the system, the more

655
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: that you know how to interact with the system, the

656
00:33:48,920 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: more you can hold it accountable. And this, in a

657
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: really strange way, was a way to hold Wall Street

658
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 1: a contable and say, hey, don't screw around with us

659
00:33:55,840 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: one more time, because we're here and we kind of

660
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: know how your system works. Now. Yeah, well there were

661
00:34:00,640 --> 00:34:02,320
Speaker 1: and there were people on Wall Street who did take

662
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 1: losses because of their short position. So it's not like

663
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: it worked out all rosy for them, but ultimately they

664
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: were in a position to absorb those losses. I mean,

665
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:15,160
Speaker 1: I think that's ultimately the sort of the moral of

666
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:18,719
Speaker 1: the story or what was revealed is there's all this

667
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: mythology around like, oh, this is the free market and

668
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: these stock values are they just represent like the intrinsic

669
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: value of this company. That's all bullshit. You know. I mean,

670
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: it's it's all fake. It's very much rigged and manipulated.

671
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:38,200
Speaker 1: But the moment that it was like regular people who

672
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 1: tried to get in on the game, while they had

673
00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 1: to bring the hammer down and make sure that you

674
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: can never ever have that happen. So ultimately it was

675
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 1: all extraordinarily revealing of how things actually work. Absolutely yeah.

676
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,360
Speaker 1: And it showed I think the weaknesses in the system,

677
00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: right and the biggest loopholes. And I think that's all

678
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:58,240
Speaker 1: what this is about. It's all about loopholes and exploiting loopholes.

679
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,879
Speaker 1: The short selling mechanism is very easy to abuse by

680
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: the largest players in the world, right. And I think

681
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: one of the ironic things is a lot of people

682
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 1: got really culed for saying, oh, you know, we'll stick

683
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: it to the hedge funds because of two thousand and eight,

684
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:12,439
Speaker 1: And then people said, well, it wasn't the hedge funds

685
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. It was all the large

686
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: investment banks. But the real joke of the story is

687
00:35:16,719 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: that this practice of naked short selling, in many of

688
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:22,360
Speaker 1: the other ways of abusing the short selling mechanism actually

689
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 1: doesn't happen at the short seller or the hedge fund.

690
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,240
Speaker 1: It happens earlier at the prime broker, which just happens

691
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:30,000
Speaker 1: to be all the largest investment banks in the world. Right,

692
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 1: And so this basket of six companies that basically runs

693
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: the US financial markets, they are yet again in a

694
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: way indirectly at fault for some of these things that

695
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: happened and have not been held accountable properly. Right, they

696
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: have not been held accountable in two thousand and eight properly.

697
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: They still have not been held accountable now. And one

698
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: of the things that I think is really important from

699
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 1: a sort of national security level, is that a market

700
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: needs to be trustworthy. Right. And so if the main

701
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: reputation of the U stock market is that it's a

702
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: rigged system, a lot of regular later should scratch your

703
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:02,399
Speaker 1: head and be like, hey, we're really going to do something,

704
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: and we're going to show some signal to the greater public. Hey,

705
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:07,680
Speaker 1: we we'll actually go after those people. Right. And sometimes

706
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 1: it's not the sec sometimes it's a DOJ. But it's

707
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: important that there needs to be a new system of

708
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 1: checks and balances on Wall Street that is currently not

709
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,239
Speaker 1: really there, which is namely jail time for individual people. Right.

710
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: If you betrayed a system. If you naked short sell,

711
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:24,360
Speaker 1: if you use the mechanisms in a way that is

712
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: not intended and it is illicitly extracting profits from the system,

713
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,399
Speaker 1: you should face at least the consequences to your own

714
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:33,439
Speaker 1: personal liberty. Yeah. I think that's really well said. Really

715
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: enjoyed the film. I encourage everybody to go and watch it.

716
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: We really appreciate your joining us man. Yeah, great to

717
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,799
Speaker 1: have you, Tobias, thank you, thanks for having me. Absolutely,

718
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: as we've covered before, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, I

719
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:48,839
Speaker 1: just can't help himself if he's put out a new

720
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: plan in order to try and win the election in

721
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,760
Speaker 1: the midterms, and that plan entails literally taxing poor people.

722
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: The plan is so absurd and obviously such a political

723
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: detriment that even Fox News is incredulous at his spin.

724
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: Let's take a lesson. Recently put out an eleven point

725
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: plan to rescue America. Two of the big points of

726
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: which are, quote, all Americans should pay some income tax

727
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 1: to have skin in the game, even if a small amount.

728
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax. It

729
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:24,480
Speaker 1: also says all federal legislation sunsets in five years if

730
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.

731
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 1: So that would raise taxes on half of Americans and

732
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:36,759
Speaker 1: potentially sunset programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Why

733
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:41,839
Speaker 1: would you propose something like that in an election year? Sure, well, John,

734
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 1: that's of course the Democrat talking points. It's a low plan.

735
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,239
Speaker 1: It's in the plan. But here's here. But here's this

736
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: thing about reality for a second, talk about John, it's

737
00:37:53,920 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 1: not a Democratic talking point. It's in the plan. And

738
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 1: also in the plan, it's as we audit every year,

739
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:04,600
Speaker 1: talk about exactly how we're going to fix medicare. Oh

740
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:08,359
Speaker 1: my god, it's in the plan, Senator, And uh, he's

741
00:38:08,440 --> 00:38:10,280
Speaker 1: right about that. Let's put this up there on the screen.

742
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 1: Per an interview that Scott gave to his own Florida

743
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: Politics outlet, he said, it's quote unfair that poor people

744
00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: don't pay income taxes, which is just frankly completely incredible.

745
00:38:23,760 --> 00:38:26,239
Speaker 1: And what's so good about this is that even Mitch

746
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,560
Speaker 1: McConnell is like, dude, this is too far. We don't

747
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:33,080
Speaker 1: support this. This is not the official Republican position, even

748
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 1: though it's the de facto Republicans position. They just are like,

749
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:38,239
Speaker 1: why are you talking about why are you talking the

750
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 1: quiet part? Why are you giving up the game here?

751
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: What are you saying? And Henry Olsen, he's a columnist

752
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 1: to actually respect a lot, you know, really into working

753
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: class politics and all that. But he's giving some, uh,

754
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: he's giving some very practical advice to the GOP. Let's

755
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: put this up there from the Washington Post House. Republicans

756
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:57,920
Speaker 1: would only hurt themselves by releasing a detailed mid term agenda.

757
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 1: And here's the thing he's totally right, which is that

758
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans do actually believe this. They do

759
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: believe it's unfair that poor people don't pay any income tax,

760
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: even though they pay a myriad of other taxes, and

761
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,760
Speaker 1: if you look at their actual percentage base of income

762
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,680
Speaker 1: that they pay is outrageous. Also got to be meaning

763
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,640
Speaker 1: to cover this, maybe I'll do with some evergreen monologue.

764
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,359
Speaker 1: But that whole report that just came out this year

765
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: that people who make less than twenty thousand dollars worth

766
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: five times more likely to be audited than billionaires and

767
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,439
Speaker 1: anybody else five times more likely to be audited when

768
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: you make less than twenty grand. So you're talking about

769
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: the poorest Americans are the easiest ones to be audited

770
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:39,319
Speaker 1: because they're not reporting their you know, barbershop income or

771
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: their service base, and yet nail tips awhere. Yeah, okay,

772
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: go after carried interests and all that. Once you exhaust

773
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:50,800
Speaker 1: all the richest people in the world, then maybe maybe

774
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: we can talk about the guy who gets paid in

775
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: cash and doesn't report his tips because he's trying to

776
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 1: pay his rent and is struggling to pay his bills.

777
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:01,680
Speaker 1: Maybe we can have that conversation instead. It's completely flipped.

778
00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: You know, this whole Venmo thing. They're going after people's

779
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:08,239
Speaker 1: Venmo translations. God, it makes me furiated. This is think

780
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: about it, classic gop real talking point. Yes, I mean

781
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: this is Mitt Romney forty seven percent at that time.

782
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all were watching Fox News, but

783
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: I was actually doing a lot of Fox News hits

784
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: during that era. What was it, like, I mean, I

785
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: was in college, so I didn't fully you know, Yeah,

786
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,600
Speaker 1: and they were This was a consistent talking point about

787
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: how half of America doesn't pay any taxes and it's

788
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: really the rich they're the makers. I mean, this is

789
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: the Paul Ryan. Yeah, this is the Paul Ryan era

790
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:36,799
Speaker 1: of talking about the makers and takers and how and

791
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,759
Speaker 1: Mitt Romney in those very revealing comments talking about how

792
00:40:39,800 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 1: forty seven percent of people are never going to care

793
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: for themselves and there's no winning them and all of

794
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 1: that stuff. They're never going to better themselves. I think

795
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 1: that was the lectures that he ultimately used. That all

796
00:40:48,600 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: comes from what Rick Scott is saying right here. They

797
00:40:52,560 --> 00:40:57,880
Speaker 1: literally lost the presidential election in part because Mitt Romney

798
00:40:57,920 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: says this like cartoonishly villaed this thing that is completely

799
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:04,520
Speaker 1: contempbual and also incredibly misleading, because, as you point out, people,

800
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 1: you know, people who are lower income pay a lot

801
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:10,640
Speaker 1: of different taxes, much higher percentage of their income ultimately

802
00:41:10,680 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: goes to taxes than certainly the very top. This was

803
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,000
Speaker 1: rejected by the American people thoroughly. In twenty twelve, Trump,

804
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,080
Speaker 1: although he governs in exactly the same way and gives

805
00:41:20,080 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 1: a coperate tax cut, is politically smart enough to understand

806
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: this is a disaster. Takes entitlements off the table. This

807
00:41:26,880 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: was also a long standing discussion in the Republican Party.

808
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: George W. Bush efforts to privatize our security. All of

809
00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: this stuff totally rejected by the American people, And here

810
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: comes Rick Scott, like, you know what we should do

811
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 1: if we get power again, Let's raise taxes on half

812
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: the country. How About we sunset programs like Medicare and

813
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:50,239
Speaker 1: Social Security after five years. How about we have a

814
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: conversation every year about how we're going to quote fix

815
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: these programs. Well, most Americans think the only fix that

816
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: needs happening to those programs is for them to be

817
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:05,919
Speaker 1: more generous, to support people more effectively. So, yeah, Mitch

818
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,399
Speaker 1: McConnell and the other strategists who are like, we're better

819
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:10,920
Speaker 1: off just not telling people what we actually want to do,

820
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 1: they are one hundred percent right. Democrats are handing the

821
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,720
Speaker 1: election to them. All they have to do is stay silent.

822
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: And yet Rick Scott can't help them. He just can't

823
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 1: help himself. And this is almost the problem with these

824
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,839
Speaker 1: types of politicians. Rick Scott bought hisself the governorship. He's

825
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:27,000
Speaker 1: worth like one hundred million dollars, has some sketchy business

826
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: practices in his past, bought himself the Florida sentence. He's

827
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: really not that talented of a politician. I mean, he

828
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,520
Speaker 1: visited Puerto Rico a bunch of times. Apparently that qualifies

829
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:39,320
Speaker 1: you in order to be the next senator. And look,

830
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: he's basically has a hole there on the Florida political

831
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:45,279
Speaker 1: machine because of an immense amount of his money. And

832
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: just look at him. The guy's literally a clown in

833
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,719
Speaker 1: terms of the way he conducts himself. But this is

834
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:53,880
Speaker 1: just an exact and perfect view into he is the

835
00:42:53,920 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 1: ideology of the mainstream of the Republican senator. Well, I

836
00:42:57,480 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 1: still of the Republican Party, but in terms of what

837
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: the mean repat that's it right there. They actually think

838
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:05,399
Speaker 1: this stuff, they're just afraid to say it out loud.

839
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: Decades of you know, of infrastructure and research and apparatus

840
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 1: just waiting. I mean, that's why the one thing Trump

841
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: gets accomplished when he's in office is his tax Reforum

842
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: that ultimately cuts taxes for the rich, because that's what

843
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 1: their entire movement is set up economically to ultimately sort

844
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: of churn out. I just found this news article. This

845
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting. According to playbook, Trump is trying

846
00:43:29,120 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 1: to recruit Rick Scott to be majority leader, which also

847
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: shows you, I don't know if this is like actually

848
00:43:36,520 --> 00:43:39,080
Speaker 1: going to happen or a real thing, but he hates

849
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell so much just based on stop the steal,

850
00:43:42,920 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 1: like that's the only thing that matters. So if ever

851
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 1: you wanted to, even for a split second delude yourself

852
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:52,879
Speaker 1: that there was some other policy platform involved, I think

853
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: this should dissuade you from that view. This is a

854
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: fun Oneasically, the media two years later has decided, Okay,

855
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 1: now it's time to acknowledge the Hunter Biden laptop is real.

856
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: I suspect, and I think you do too. It's because

857
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 1: the federal grand jury is hearing these cases very seriously

858
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: and he might actually be criminally indicted. Yeah, and they

859
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: can't deny it. But they can't deny it anymore. To

860
00:44:19,719 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: get out item Justice Department has now validated the laptop,

861
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:25,600
Speaker 1: so they can't play dumb anymore. You can't playdumb anymore.

862
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: So now everybody's like, oh, actually, you know that laptop

863
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 1: that we all said was fake. Oh yeah, that's actually

864
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: totally real. So let's go ahead and put this up

865
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: there on the screen. This is from the Washington Post.

866
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 1: So there's a lot going on here. The Washington Post

867
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,560
Speaker 1: says inside Hunter Biden's multi million dollar deals with the

868
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 1: Chinese energy company The subhead, a Washington Post review confirms

869
00:44:45,440 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 1: key details and offers new documentation of Biden family interactions

870
00:44:49,600 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: with Chinese executive. And what they point to specifically is

871
00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:57,960
Speaker 1: on August second, twenty seventeen, signatures were quickly affixed from

872
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden and Chinese Eggs executive Gong went Don, and

873
00:45:01,719 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 1: within days a new Cathay Bank account was created. Within

874
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:09,280
Speaker 1: a week, millions of dollars started to change hands. However,

875
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: within a year it would all begin to collapse. What

876
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: they point to is a previously known and we will

877
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:18,240
Speaker 1: get to that deal between Hunter Biden and the CEFC

878
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: China Energy Corporations, which has direct ties to the Chinese

879
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 1: Communist Party. That Chinese energy conglomerate paid four point eight

880
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: million dollars to entities that were controlled by Hunter Biden

881
00:45:30,120 --> 00:45:33,320
Speaker 1: and his uncle James Biden, the brother of the President.

882
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: Court documents and newly disclosed bank statements, as well as

883
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:42,760
Speaker 1: emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive

884
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 1: that once belonged to Hunter Biden. And what they specifically

885
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 1: point to is that Hunter Biden's laptop was confirmed why

886
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: the Washington Post very interesting? You know, it was confirmed

887
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: the day he didn't deny that it was his. Okay,

888
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, all the hallmarks. This

889
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 1: is the same outlet which ran these types of stories,

890
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: and what they point to is that the CFC deal

891
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:11,640
Speaker 1: became one of the most lucrative, if short lived, foreign

892
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,720
Speaker 1: ventures that Hunter is known to have pursued. The post

893
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 1: review draws in part on an analysis of the hard

894
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: drive of the laptop computer. And I think what is

895
00:46:23,239 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 1: so important here is that this is this the most

896
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: important thing in the world. No, okay, in terms of

897
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 1: the evidence within the story, have they directly connected Joe

898
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: Biden to that. No, although you can go read that

899
00:46:34,320 --> 00:46:38,319
Speaker 1: email from Tony Bobolinsky around the Big Guy and specifically

900
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:42,160
Speaker 1: connected to a China deal. But here's the basic fact pattern.

901
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: The president's son and the president's brother received millions of

902
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 1: dollars from the Chinese Communist Party and used those dollars

903
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 1: in a slush fund. Oh and also didn't pay any

904
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,359
Speaker 1: tax allegedly did not pay any of their taxes on

905
00:46:54,440 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 1: any of this. That's pretty sketchy. Now do you think

906
00:46:57,480 --> 00:46:59,479
Speaker 1: that they did it out of the goodness of their heart?

907
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:02,440
Speaker 1: That the and he's Communist Party is wiring the former

908
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: vice president's son and now current president's son all of

909
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:09,279
Speaker 1: this money. My personal favorite, Crystal was whenever they did

910
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:16,040
Speaker 1: not pay his bills, Hunter actually threatened to sue them

911
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:20,560
Speaker 1: in Delaware court right specifically said, just so you know,

912
00:47:20,920 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: I know all the judges in Delaware. Yeah, because they

913
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 1: questioned that's that little detail is funny too, because they

914
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: questioned one of the expenses that he was trying to

915
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:34,520
Speaker 1: get reimbursed. Last show we brought you how you know

916
00:47:34,600 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 1: he was getting money that was for a car for

917
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:40,320
Speaker 1: like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars sports car, screws car. Yeah.

918
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:42,480
Speaker 1: I don't even really know what it is, that's how

919
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:46,120
Speaker 1: fancy it is. But yeah, so he was clearly using

920
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:50,359
Speaker 1: this to fund an insanely lavish lifestyle, allegedly according to

921
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 1: you know, some of the investigations with the Grand jury,

922
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 1: maybe not paying his taxes on some of those things,

923
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: certainly getting behind on his taxes. And I think in

924
00:47:57,680 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 1: terms of political relevance, like, it's very obvious here, guys,

925
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: you don't need a direct connect to Joe Biden. It's

926
00:48:03,719 --> 00:48:07,359
Speaker 1: plain to see that James Biden and Hunter Biden, we're

927
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:09,680
Speaker 1: not getting these gigs and having these millions of dollars

928
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:13,319
Speaker 1: thrown at them because of their competence or expertise. It's

929
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,720
Speaker 1: all because of their last name. And that is blatant corruption.

930
00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: Did Joe Biden directly have anything to do with that,

931
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:23,799
Speaker 1: We don't know. We don't know. But as we talk

932
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:26,839
Speaker 1: about with corruption all the time, just the appearance of

933
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:31,879
Speaker 1: this type of corruption is so incredibly damaging, especially when look,

934
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 1: he's the president of the United States. Obviously, our relationship

935
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: with China is extraordinarily significant. Obviously, you know, relationship with

936
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:43,520
Speaker 1: Ukraine now extraordinarily significant. So these are no small things.

937
00:48:43,560 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: As you said, is it the biggest story in the world. No,

938
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:48,840
Speaker 1: but it actually is really pretty damn significant. And here's

939
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: the other part of it that we have to point out,

940
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: which is that, yeah, the Washington Post has a few

941
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: new details here, putting some like, you know, meat on

942
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 1: the bones of this story. Is this a new story, No, No,

943
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:06,279
Speaker 1: it's not. I mean, we knew the general outlines of

944
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: what was going on here for a long time, and

945
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:13,839
Speaker 1: they just couldn't be bothered to actually dig in and

946
00:49:13,960 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 1: do real reporting on what was going on until now

947
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,400
Speaker 1: when their hand is forced by the fact that he

948
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 1: may be facing criminal liability. And actually, you know, facing

949
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:28,040
Speaker 1: potential indictment over these things, so they can no longer

950
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:30,479
Speaker 1: sat on their hands. There was a window in the past.

951
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 1: Remember we talk up some of the old stories from

952
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: Politico and whatever that talked about Biden family corruption twenty nineteen,

953
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: So there was a time when it was on the table,

954
00:49:40,360 --> 00:49:43,560
Speaker 1: and then you had this whole long stretch where suddenly,

955
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:45,319
Speaker 1: because it was clear he was likely to be a

956
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,640
Speaker 1: Democratic conmine, oh, now you can't say anything. You had

957
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 1: even his primary rivals Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others

958
00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 1: totally pulling their punches on insinuating any sort of corruption. Well,

959
00:49:56,480 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: remember when Bertie like chastise and discipline members of his

960
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: campaign team and his surrogates like Zephyr teach out who

961
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: wanted to go in the direction of talking about Biden corruption.

962
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: The media, obviously, you know, was was all ready to

963
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,360
Speaker 1: go and sort of like smear you as unfair and

964
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 1: right wing and you love Trump if you brought any

965
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 1: of this stuff up, then they go and completely hide

966
00:50:17,200 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 1: it in the general election, and it's it's disgraceful. So listen,

967
00:50:21,520 --> 00:50:24,839
Speaker 1: none of this is particularly new, but it is significant

968
00:50:25,160 --> 00:50:28,319
Speaker 1: to know that there were these big deals with significant

969
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: players around the world who clearly whatever they actually got,

970
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:37,560
Speaker 1: they clearly thought they were getting access and influence. You

971
00:50:37,600 --> 00:50:40,240
Speaker 1: guys have been waiting for us to talk about CNN Plus.

972
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:43,160
Speaker 1: We've been waiting as well, all right, So let's start

973
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: with the most important part, which is the part that

974
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:49,399
Speaker 1: has to do with us, which is that, Okay, we

975
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:51,840
Speaker 1: do not have anything to do with the ads that

976
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:54,120
Speaker 1: are placed on our podcast. It's very similar to how

977
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:56,360
Speaker 1: things work on YouTube, where they just insert ads. We

978
00:50:56,440 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 1: do have some say over like we've told them no,

979
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: no far no banks. That's right. So we do have

980
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 1: some say ever saying like absolutely these people cannot. But

981
00:51:05,080 --> 00:51:08,000
Speaker 1: we did not include CNN Plus Yes in that list

982
00:51:08,120 --> 00:51:10,399
Speaker 1: of no nos. Frankly, just never thought it didn't really

983
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 1: occur to us. So according to you guys, let's put

984
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: this first element up on the screen. Some of you

985
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 1: are getting served CNN Plus at the beginning of Breaking

986
00:51:19,760 --> 00:51:25,520
Speaker 1: Voins on Spotify, which is hilarious because they are obviously

987
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: too stupid to know that our audience is going to

988
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 1: give them negative return and nothing but scorn for their

989
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 1: money spent on our podcast. Our audience exists because they suck,

990
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 1: and so, as I put it, here if they want

991
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:43,080
Speaker 1: to help support the show in order to point out

992
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,719
Speaker 1: how awful they are, be my guest. Okay, people, but

993
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: it does show you that they are desperate. They are

994
00:51:49,719 --> 00:51:53,879
Speaker 1: absolutely desperate in what is going on. That tiny little

995
00:51:53,880 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 1: tidbit is of course absolutely hilarious, but in terms of

996
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:01,879
Speaker 1: the actual thing, the products launched. So how's it going.

997
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:03,840
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and put this next one up there

998
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:07,160
Speaker 1: on the screen. This is especially funny. Look at what

999
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:09,800
Speaker 1: they are doing, Crystal. They are doing the tried and true,

1000
00:52:10,160 --> 00:52:13,960
Speaker 1: trying to rejuice their initial sign up numbers to fake

1001
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: how many people they actually have. And as we're pointing

1002
00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,640
Speaker 1: out here, they are discounting the product to half its

1003
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:24,760
Speaker 1: price to ninety nine a month in order to try

1004
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,759
Speaker 1: and induce as many people as possible to sign up.

1005
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: Save fifty percent for save fifty percent for life. Question

1006
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:33,480
Speaker 1: is how long the life of CNN plus is ultimately

1007
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: going to be exactly? And that's a really good point.

1008
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. I went ahead and I read

1009
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 1: in Puck News last night that CNN plus's initial projection

1010
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 1: is they need two million people to become subscribers in

1011
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,880
Speaker 1: the first year, five million over three years, forget and

1012
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 1: that is at these rock bottom fake prices. Here's the thing.

1013
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:57,080
Speaker 1: If you have no confidence in your produit This is

1014
00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:00,640
Speaker 1: not retail. This is content. Content is flat in terms

1015
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:02,719
Speaker 1: of discounts and all that. We don't have to have

1016
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 1: sell through business people know what I'm talking about. The

1017
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 1: way retail works is like you discount you know, off season,

1018
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: sell through rates, inventory. This that's not how this stuff works.

1019
00:53:11,760 --> 00:53:13,799
Speaker 1: The way it works here is if you have a

1020
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:16,280
Speaker 1: product that you value, you sell it at a price

1021
00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:20,200
Speaker 1: that you think is fair. All of this discounting that's

1022
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:22,640
Speaker 1: happening on their part, it shows you they have no

1023
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:26,920
Speaker 1: they have no confidence in their actual product. They're throwing

1024
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:29,799
Speaker 1: it away in order to rejuice their initial sign ups

1025
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 1: and then fake it to the advertising industryency. See, we

1026
00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:36,319
Speaker 1: have X hundreds of thousands of people were signing up

1027
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:39,719
Speaker 1: Yeah pink you two ninety nine a month. They had

1028
00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:44,480
Speaker 1: to hire hundreds of people. They've thrown so much money

1029
00:53:44,480 --> 00:53:48,160
Speaker 1: at this, probably maybe a million. Because if you think

1030
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: about oh absolutely, because well, first of all, and I'm

1031
00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:52,880
Speaker 1: going to get to we did not actually watch their

1032
00:53:52,880 --> 00:53:54,920
Speaker 1: content because there was no way in Helen giving them

1033
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:57,400
Speaker 1: even three dollars of my money, but somebody did and

1034
00:53:57,440 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 1: they did a review, and we'll tell you about that

1035
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: in a minute. But from the pictures of it, like

1036
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:04,480
Speaker 1: the sets are really elaborate, I can tell you that's

1037
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:08,879
Speaker 1: very expensive. Even though the talent that they brought in

1038
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 1: shouldn't be expensive, it is, you know, Chris Wallace is

1039
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:16,280
Speaker 1: a big get. They reportedly tried to get Rachel Maddow

1040
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 1: for like twenty million dollars. She ends up staying at MSNBC.

1041
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: Apparently they also tried to get Ari Melbourn, another primetime

1042
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:25,040
Speaker 1: host over there, who would have to be paid, you know,

1043
00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. I'm sure to come over. He ultimately

1044
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: decided to stay where he was at MSNBC as well.

1045
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 1: You've got you know, Casey Hunt. Like some of these

1046
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:37,360
Speaker 1: people that they acquired are not inexpensive. This is a

1047
00:54:37,480 --> 00:54:39,719
Speaker 1: lot of money to throw at talent, to throw at

1048
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 1: the technology, to throw at ads that are going to

1049
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: be completely worthless to you on our podcast, to throw

1050
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:48,319
Speaker 1: at the set. They have made a huge investment in

1051
00:54:48,400 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: this thing, and then to on day one have to

1052
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: market down to half price to come anywhere close to

1053
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: what your projections are. And by the way, I still

1054
00:54:57,120 --> 00:54:59,000
Speaker 1: don't think they're going to come anywhere close to what

1055
00:54:59,040 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: their projections are and have some reporting on that as well,

1056
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:03,239
Speaker 1: because if you're saying they have to get to five

1057
00:55:03,320 --> 00:55:06,640
Speaker 1: million subscribers, that's like not that far shy of what

1058
00:55:06,719 --> 00:55:10,279
Speaker 1: the New York Times digital subscriptions ex They're at six

1059
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:13,200
Speaker 1: point eight million based on what I just was looking up,

1060
00:55:13,280 --> 00:55:16,839
Speaker 1: So you know you're trying and for all like New

1061
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:19,920
Speaker 1: York Times fault, like obviously they have been intelligent about

1062
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:23,680
Speaker 1: their digital offering for ten years. Yeah, right, so this

1063
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:25,960
Speaker 1: is put it that way. That's insane. So people are

1064
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 1: going to pay five million. People are going to pay

1065
00:55:28,120 --> 00:55:30,239
Speaker 1: for like an extra hour of Wolf Splitzer doing the

1066
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 1: same shit that he does for free on your like

1067
00:55:32,280 --> 00:55:34,839
Speaker 1: on regular CNN. I cannot believe it. People are going

1068
00:55:34,920 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 1: to pay for Anderson Cooper's parenting tips or Jake Tapper's bookshow,

1069
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,280
Speaker 1: Like come on, I mean, this is the most insane

1070
00:55:42,680 --> 00:55:45,400
Speaker 1: business attempt that I have ever seen. Here's another just

1071
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:49,520
Speaker 1: like silliness of this. They're apparently selling the first moment

1072
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 1: as an NFT, which also okay, so first just like cringe, hilarious,

1073
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:57,280
Speaker 1: They're gonna sell the first twenty nine seconds of five

1074
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:01,080
Speaker 1: things with Kate Baldwin will be sold fifty dollars eat.

1075
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:03,480
Speaker 1: So guys, if you're interested, you better hop too. I'm

1076
00:56:03,480 --> 00:56:05,719
Speaker 1: sure those things are flying right off the shelf. But

1077
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 1: the way that they talk about this internally is like

1078
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:13,000
Speaker 1: this is the most historic moment since Ted Turner's launch

1079
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:16,200
Speaker 1: of the network. That's how much they have invested in it,

1080
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: and it's just clearly a disaster. Look, it gives me

1081
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 1: a lot of confidence in what we're doing here and

1082
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:23,600
Speaker 1: building out something new. We've built the audience now over

1083
00:56:23,640 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: several years, building it out and adding some of the

1084
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:29,520
Speaker 1: component parts without doing the complete boondoggle of what they're

1085
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:32,120
Speaker 1: doing over at CNN. And look, I have some bone

1086
00:56:32,160 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: to pick two also with the content. I mean Anderson

1087
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:39,359
Speaker 1: Cooper parenting show. I actually looked into it. So Anderson's

1088
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 1: show is parenting advice as a working dad, and I

1089
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:46,839
Speaker 1: just look, I have no disrespect for Anderson in terms

1090
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:49,000
Speaker 1: of what he actually does when he goes to Tahrir

1091
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:53,280
Speaker 1: Square in the middle of the Kyrie protest. Okay, actually

1092
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:56,799
Speaker 1: good at with his job. But the idea that the

1093
00:56:56,840 --> 00:57:00,160
Speaker 1: heir to the Vanderbilt fortune who is a single dad

1094
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,319
Speaker 1: has anything in common with the real single dad who

1095
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: is working several jobs or single mom. That's ludicrous. I'm sorry, Like,

1096
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:09,719
Speaker 1: what's your problem that then nanny didn't show up on time,

1097
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:12,640
Speaker 1: or that you had, you know, your your shift schedule

1098
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:15,480
Speaker 1: went off, and that your caregivers, you know, got their

1099
00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:18,600
Speaker 1: schedules mixed up. I'm not diminishing that it's probably not

1100
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 1: still hard to be a single dad when you're a multimillionaire,

1101
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:25,320
Speaker 1: you're literally the heir to the Vanderbilt Force. I'm sorry.

1102
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:27,680
Speaker 1: That reminds me of when Cheryl Sandberg was trying to

1103
00:57:27,680 --> 00:57:30,200
Speaker 1: get parenting and remember and she'd like built down a

1104
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:33,080
Speaker 1: whole nursery next to her her like folk office. I'll

1105
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:35,000
Speaker 1: just do that, whether her nanny would be their full

1106
00:57:35,040 --> 00:57:37,400
Speaker 1: time with her kid, and we're like, oh yeah, everyone

1107
00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 1: can just accomplish that. That's going to make it super workable.

1108
00:57:40,360 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 1: So I didn't know that that was the framing of

1109
00:57:42,440 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 1: the things. That's what bothers me, something like that. You know,

1110
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,280
Speaker 1: there are actual single parents out there. I've met some

1111
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: of them who really suffer and they have really a

1112
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 1: big problem and they're not rich, they don't they can't

1113
00:57:54,360 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 1: relate in any way to your experience of being a

1114
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 1: multi millionaire television host, of living in New York City,

1115
00:58:00,800 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: and you kind of have the audacity to try and

1116
00:58:03,200 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 1: sell that to people. I think that's completely ridiculous and insane.

1117
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:09,760
Speaker 1: Same whenever it comes to all of the other offerings

1118
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:12,840
Speaker 1: that they have, Jake Tapper's book club with Dolly Parton, Wow,

1119
00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 1: I've never seen an interview with Dolly before. Well, I

1120
00:58:15,720 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: can't say anything about that because I would love to

1121
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:19,960
Speaker 1: have an interview with Dolly Partons. Yeah. Sure, but she's

1122
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 1: been interviewed a million times for free. You can go

1123
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: listen to her on any podcast. I think. Also, it's

1124
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:27,680
Speaker 1: just like, remember some of the reporting after Zucker was

1125
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:30,520
Speaker 1: out was about how internally there were a lot of

1126
00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:33,200
Speaker 1: questions about CNN Plus because this had kind of been

1127
00:58:33,280 --> 00:58:35,960
Speaker 1: Zucker's baby, and even some of their staff were like,

1128
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:38,960
Speaker 1: I mean, Jake Tapper is fine, but like, are people

1129
00:58:39,080 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 1: really so enthusiastic about Jake Tapper that they're going to

1130
00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 1: sign up for his book club? All of this is

1131
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:46,480
Speaker 1: a way of saying like they have no idea what

1132
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 1: they're doing in this space, and I think it's very

1133
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 1: revealing because number one, they clearly know that their traditional

1134
00:58:53,960 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: business model is under threat. Is it still wildly profitable? Yes,

1135
00:58:58,720 --> 00:59:00,520
Speaker 1: but they also can see the writing on the wall.

1136
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:05,600
Speaker 1: They're demographic is super old. They're under threat from you know,

1137
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 1: the whole array of content, not just a news content

1138
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:12,920
Speaker 1: like ours, but other options that are out there. Younger

1139
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 1: generations are not signing up for traditional cable packages, so

1140
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:20,040
Speaker 1: they know they have to do something, but they have

1141
00:59:20,240 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 1: no idea what that might actually look like. To provide

1142
00:59:24,120 --> 00:59:27,600
Speaker 1: some sort of valuable content that people would believe in,

1143
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 1: that's really the thing and be willing to sign up for.

1144
00:59:30,840 --> 00:59:33,640
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we find with our subscribers is,

1145
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:35,760
Speaker 1: you know, as much as we try to give them,

1146
00:59:35,840 --> 00:59:38,800
Speaker 1: you know, access to things early in special interviews in

1147
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:40,720
Speaker 1: ama that we do and all of that, what they're

1148
00:59:40,760 --> 00:59:42,560
Speaker 1: really here for is because they believe in the mission.

1149
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:44,560
Speaker 1: They believe in the project, they believe in what we're

1150
00:59:44,600 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: trying to build. Who believes in what CNN Plus is

1151
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: trying to build? And also what are you even trying

1152
00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:54,280
Speaker 1: to build? Because that's the other part of it is

1153
00:59:54,760 --> 00:59:59,439
Speaker 1: the content is incredibly scattershot. It doesn't provide really any

1154
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:03,320
Speaker 1: sort of value add to what is already on the channel.

1155
01:00:03,720 --> 01:00:08,520
Speaker 1: So who is your target audience. Here, we've got we've

1156
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: got the USA Today review. Go ahead and put the

1157
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 1: USA Today screenshot up up there, So they say, watching

1158
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:17,840
Speaker 1: CNN Plus's first day, So what are we doing here?

1159
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: Hint talking about Will Smith. This person, brave individual, went

1160
01:00:24,120 --> 01:00:28,160
Speaker 1: ahead and watched the first four hours of CNN Plus.

1161
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 1: They say, so, what are we doing here? Brian Stelzer

1162
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:33,280
Speaker 1: asked at the outset of his show Reliable Sources Daily,

1163
01:00:33,520 --> 01:00:36,080
Speaker 1: In case there wasn't enough Reliable Sources, which gets very

1164
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:38,920
Speaker 1: poor ratings even on his normal CNN channel, they decided

1165
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:41,720
Speaker 1: to give him a daily show on CNN Plus. Tuesday morning,

1166
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:44,200
Speaker 1: I was asking myself the same thing at four am

1167
01:00:44,240 --> 01:00:46,480
Speaker 1: Pacific when I tuned into the kickoff of the new

1168
01:00:46,520 --> 01:00:50,000
Speaker 1: streaming platform. After watching the first four live shows on

1169
01:00:50,040 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: the platform, the answer to Stelter's question was clear. They

1170
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: were talking about Will Smith before the launch. The biggest

1171
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:58,960
Speaker 1: question about CNN Plus was why it was needed when

1172
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: the CNN network can be viewed on TV and online.

1173
01:01:02,000 --> 01:01:04,160
Speaker 1: After watching the first four shows airing on the platform

1174
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 1: Tuesday morning, that question change replaced by a new one.

1175
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:09,400
Speaker 1: What would they have talked about if Will Smith hadn't

1176
01:01:09,400 --> 01:01:12,160
Speaker 1: slapped Chris Rock at the OSCARS. I think it's a

1177
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:15,920
Speaker 1: perfect encapsulation because it's exactly the type of story that

1178
01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 1: people who know nothing about alternative media would think, like, oh,

1179
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:21,880
Speaker 1: this is the hot thing that we should really lean into.

1180
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: That people just want endless takes on and so they're

1181
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,840
Speaker 1: just chasing whatever they think is going to get clicks

1182
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 1: and views, rather than actually having any sort of like

1183
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:36,920
Speaker 1: identity or meati value generating offering like did you really

1184
01:01:37,000 --> 01:01:39,440
Speaker 1: need more will Smith takes? Was that something that you

1185
01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:41,919
Speaker 1: were really dying for out there? Was that a need

1186
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:43,880
Speaker 1: that was unmet? No, of course not. No, it wasn't.

1187
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:45,480
Speaker 1: And I think that this is the point, which is

1188
01:01:45,520 --> 01:01:49,600
Speaker 1: that whenever we'd spend years building this up and understanding

1189
01:01:49,640 --> 01:01:52,600
Speaker 1: what exactly both people want and also inventing different ways.

1190
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:55,080
Speaker 1: I mean, some of our union coverage was not popular

1191
01:01:55,160 --> 01:01:57,280
Speaker 1: in the beginning. Action is pretty unpopular. I just did

1192
01:01:57,280 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 1: it anyway because we believed that it was important. You

1193
01:01:59,440 --> 01:02:02,680
Speaker 1: have to build constituency around things sometimes, especially if you

1194
01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:04,800
Speaker 1: believe yeah, and you have to stand for something you know,

1195
01:02:04,920 --> 01:02:07,320
Speaker 1: and you know, I see, I can see within this

1196
01:02:07,520 --> 01:02:11,040
Speaker 1: that it is just a multimillion dollar boondoggle, and really

1197
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: if they really had courage. Here's what they would do.

1198
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 1: They would say, we're not doing any more deals with cable,

1199
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:20,200
Speaker 1: as in, no more Comcast NBC. We're going to put

1200
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: all live TV on the internet and let's see how

1201
01:02:23,720 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 1: it works out. That would be a gutsy move. But

1202
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:29,240
Speaker 1: guess what this is the innovator's dilemma. They can't do that.

1203
01:02:29,600 --> 01:02:32,160
Speaker 1: They make billions of dollars. Too much invested in the current, way,

1204
01:02:32,160 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 1: too much invested in the current. It's like Kodak inventing

1205
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:38,520
Speaker 1: the digital camera in the nineteen eighties. Technology was there,

1206
01:02:38,640 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 1: everybody knew what was the future. But you make a

1207
01:02:40,720 --> 01:02:43,320
Speaker 1: whole lot of money on film, and the shareholders demand

1208
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:46,520
Speaker 1: profit and the parent company wants this. They have the

1209
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:51,560
Speaker 1: inability to disrupt themselves. Only great businesses can actually do that. Otherwise,

1210
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:54,800
Speaker 1: people like yours truly up here are the ones who

1211
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:57,160
Speaker 1: are going to come and eventually eat your lunch. But

1212
01:02:57,440 --> 01:02:59,120
Speaker 1: I do want to put out a word of caution

1213
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:02,040
Speaker 1: for us not to be too triumphalis here as they

1214
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:06,920
Speaker 1: fall on their face because they can't compete with actual

1215
01:03:07,120 --> 01:03:11,800
Speaker 1: alternative media and the offerings that are really quality there,

1216
01:03:11,840 --> 01:03:15,320
Speaker 1: and there are many I think quality podcast quality YouTube

1217
01:03:16,080 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 1: creators who provide really in depth analysis. I know I've

1218
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:21,960
Speaker 1: been relying a lot on you know, that sort of

1219
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: analysis during the Ukraine crisis, going back through the history

1220
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:27,400
Speaker 1: and the military strategy and trying to understand what's going on.

1221
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:30,800
Speaker 1: They can't compete with that, so what are they going

1222
01:03:30,880 --> 01:03:33,600
Speaker 1: to do. They're not going to just say well, we

1223
01:03:33,720 --> 01:03:35,600
Speaker 1: just can't do it. No, they're going to try to

1224
01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:38,440
Speaker 1: rig the market. They're going to try to destroy the

1225
01:03:38,440 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 1: things that are out there that are good so that

1226
01:03:40,840 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 1: people have no other choice. And they'll also listen, we'll

1227
01:03:43,760 --> 01:03:46,440
Speaker 1: never know what their real numbers are because they'll bundle

1228
01:03:46,480 --> 01:03:49,440
Speaker 1: it with HBO or Discovery, and so you'll never actually

1229
01:03:49,520 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: know what a failure it ultimately is. But the fact

1230
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:55,480
Speaker 1: that they're trying to play anywhere in our space, like

1231
01:03:55,520 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 1: anywhere close to our space, is a direct threat because again,

1232
01:03:59,320 --> 01:04:01,800
Speaker 1: they don't care about actually playing fair and like, let's

1233
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:04,960
Speaker 1: just compete in the marketplace of ideas and provide good content. No,

1234
01:04:05,080 --> 01:04:07,800
Speaker 1: they'll win at all costs if that requires, you know,

1235
01:04:08,480 --> 01:04:12,240
Speaker 1: smearing all of sub stack as racists or whatever. They're

1236
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:16,280
Speaker 1: going to you know, unfettered conversations, or smearing all podcasts

1237
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:18,960
Speaker 1: or smearing all YouTube creators. They will do that, and

1238
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:22,960
Speaker 1: we've already seen those tactics be employed. So that's my

1239
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:25,479
Speaker 1: sort of cautionary note here is even though they suck,

1240
01:04:25,560 --> 01:04:27,680
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that it's not going to be really damaging.

1241
01:04:27,840 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 1: Oh we shouldn't be We should not be too rosy

1242
01:04:30,800 --> 01:04:32,920
Speaker 1: about it at all. Look, it's fun. I'm gonna be honest,

1243
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:35,320
Speaker 1: especially this part. Let's put this up there on the screen.

1244
01:04:35,880 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 1: CNN already bracing for layoffs. This is from Charles Gasparino.

1245
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:42,680
Speaker 1: CNN Plus employees bracing for layoffs as soon as May.

1246
01:04:42,720 --> 01:04:45,560
Speaker 1: Amit projections of lackluster sales of the new streaming channel.

1247
01:04:45,760 --> 01:04:48,200
Speaker 1: CNN employee say a new streaming channel could be merged

1248
01:04:48,200 --> 01:04:51,800
Speaker 1: into a larger Discovery Plus as early as May unless

1249
01:04:51,840 --> 01:04:56,400
Speaker 1: subscriptions pick up from Fox Business. CNN responded and said

1250
01:04:56,400 --> 01:04:59,600
Speaker 1: that that's not true, that they're very happy with their launch.

1251
01:05:00,080 --> 01:05:03,480
Speaker 1: See what the truth is. All reporting from inside the

1252
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:06,280
Speaker 1: house indicates that the new parent company does not like

1253
01:05:06,360 --> 01:05:09,560
Speaker 1: CNN Plus, that they are already scaling back it's vision,

1254
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:12,880
Speaker 1: and that Zucker specifically was the godfather of this thing,

1255
01:05:12,920 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 1: and that with him gone, that it is probably a

1256
01:05:15,480 --> 01:05:18,560
Speaker 1: goner and it'll eventually get folded into the broader thing.

1257
01:05:18,600 --> 01:05:22,080
Speaker 1: It's funny, you know, on their marketing, they're marketing the

1258
01:05:22,080 --> 01:05:23,800
Speaker 1: hell out of the fact that you can watch Anthony

1259
01:05:23,800 --> 01:05:27,040
Speaker 1: Bourdain show. Yeah, you can already watch Parts Unknown on

1260
01:05:27,280 --> 01:05:30,520
Speaker 1: HBO Max. You don't need CNN Plus to watch it.

1261
01:05:30,560 --> 01:05:33,000
Speaker 1: So the only thing that they have. And by the way,

1262
01:05:33,040 --> 01:05:35,480
Speaker 1: he's dead, I mean of rest in peace. But like

1263
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:37,680
Speaker 1: it's kind of gross. And this was written in the

1264
01:05:37,720 --> 01:05:40,600
Speaker 1: Puck Review as well. To use a dead man's image

1265
01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:43,080
Speaker 1: in order to sell subscriptions. I think it's kind of

1266
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 1: you know, seedy shows the pathetic nature of their offering

1267
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:49,720
Speaker 1: that that's the best they have to offer is something

1268
01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 1: that is from the past and not you know, what

1269
01:05:52,960 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 1: their new offerings are ultimately for the future. I do

1270
01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:58,440
Speaker 1: want to throw in there with regard to, you know,

1271
01:05:58,480 --> 01:06:02,080
Speaker 1: the Fox reporter who is reporting this information which may

1272
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:04,080
Speaker 1: or may not be true, but I'm going to go

1273
01:06:04,120 --> 01:06:06,120
Speaker 1: ahead and believe that it is true because I do

1274
01:06:06,200 --> 01:06:08,240
Speaker 1: think that their launch was a dismal failure based on

1275
01:06:08,280 --> 01:06:11,440
Speaker 1: all available sides. Fox's streaming effort has also been a

1276
01:06:11,480 --> 01:06:14,200
Speaker 1: completely dismal failure. That they have also spent a lot

1277
01:06:14,200 --> 01:06:16,480
Speaker 1: of money on in terms of acquiring talent. All of

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01:06:16,480 --> 01:06:20,400
Speaker 1: them have also found the msmofc one has also been

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01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:22,760
Speaker 1: they just have fallen on their face because they all

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01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:25,800
Speaker 1: are subject to that same issue that you're talking about

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01:06:25,920 --> 01:06:29,520
Speaker 1: is they just don't understand this world at all. Their

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01:06:29,640 --> 01:06:32,720
Speaker 1: traditional model is what aren't them the bucks and makes

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01:06:32,760 --> 01:06:35,800
Speaker 1: them the money? And it's very standard, sort of like

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01:06:36,080 --> 01:06:40,880
Speaker 1: there's this standard concept in businesses that it's very hard

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01:06:40,880 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 1: if you're the legacy business to be also the innovator,

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01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:46,280
Speaker 1: and so they're not really able to pull it off.

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01:06:46,320 --> 01:06:47,800
Speaker 1: None of them have been able to pull it off,

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Speaker 1: and it doesn't look like CNN is going to do

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Speaker 1: anything better. That's right,