Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 1: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent
Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
Speaker 1: it just means the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 1: Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 1: What do we have, Crystal, Indeed we do. We have
Speaker 1: more exclusive breaking news out of those leaked documents. We
Speaker 1: also have a new response from the Planegon. It's really
Speaker 1: quite extraordinary. I mean they're freaking out about this in
Speaker 1: every way imaginable, So we'll get into that. We also
Speaker 1: have some new interesting comments from Ukraine with regard to
Speaker 1: their interests in India being a part of a potential
Speaker 1: peace process that we'll bring you those critical details as well.
Speaker 1: Ron de Santis moving forward in the Florida legislature with
Speaker 1: a six week abortion ban. Now, this is the guy
Speaker 1: who was framing himself as the like more electable alternative
Speaker 1: to Trump and yet on this particular issue, he's wildly
Speaker 1: out of step with the American people. What will that
Speaker 1: mean for his potential campaign. We'll get into all of that.
Speaker 1: We also have Joe Biden being Joe Biden, sort of
Speaker 1: like accidentally making news in the most bumbling way possible.
Speaker 1: You definitely want to watch that clip. And we're going
Speaker 1: to dig into Justice Thomas and the bombshell report about
Speaker 1: corruption and his failure to disclose elaborate luxury trips worth
Speaker 1: like half a million dollars over decades. There are new
Speaker 1: calls for him to be impeached. So we will give
Speaker 1: you all of the details there, but we wanted to
Speaker 1: start with the very latest with regards to those leak
Speaker 1: docs and what we have been able to glean from them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. We're in a very advantageous position as I
Speaker 1: understand it. You know, outside of the mainstream media, we're
Speaker 1: one of the only people who had a full set
Speaker 1: of documents. Here. As I've tried to explain before, there
Speaker 1: are a couple of images from the leaked Pentagon Ukraine
Speaker 1: documents that have been circulating around on telegram between five
Speaker 1: to fifteen images. Those are pretty much well known. They've
Speaker 1: been well dissected. All they continue to be taken off
Speaker 1: of social media. The full and original set, though, however,
Speaker 1: has taken some interesting chicanery to obtain on our part,
Speaker 1: and so what we have been doing is going through
Speaker 1: and finding the stories, some being reported by mainstream media,
Speaker 1: but many others significantly downplayed. Same proviso at the top.
Speaker 1: Everything that we're reporting today, we sent to the Pentagon
Speaker 1: and to the White House for the opportunity to comment.
Speaker 1: The Pentagon, actually, and interestingly, which they rarely do, responded
Speaker 1: almost instantaneously and referred me to the briefing that they
Speaker 1: gave yesterday. So let's gohe and put that briefing up
Speaker 1: here on the screen, because it itself is extraordinary. Before
Speaker 1: we get to some of the reporting, basically, what you
Speaker 1: can go through and we'll have a link here if
Speaker 1: anybody wants to go and read it. This is all
Speaker 1: public record. Is the direct transcript where the Defense Secretary
Speaker 1: or the Secretary's press secretary is asked, I don't want
Speaker 1: to say what Crystal almost ten to a dozen times
Speaker 1: in every case about these leaked documents, and really all
Speaker 1: he has are two talking points. Number One, we are
Speaker 1: referring this matter to the Department of Justice, and we
Speaker 1: are taking this very very clearly seriously. In other words,
Speaker 1: we are going to hunt down and find as soon
Speaker 1: as humanly possible, whoever is responsible for leaking these documents.
Speaker 1: We'll get into a little bit about that later in
Speaker 1: the show. And then number two, they continue to try
Speaker 1: and encourage BSS basically censorship on the document, saying, well,
Speaker 1: you don't want to amplify these, We urge you caution
Speaker 1: because they could be doctor. Now, once again, there is
Speaker 1: only one piece of this which is in any dispute whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and that's not even the original document. It's the one
Speaker 1: that the Russians took, photoshopped and circulated on telegram trying
Speaker 1: to deflate the number of casualties of the US intelligence
Speaker 1: community estimates. So already we are dealing with the Pentagon
Speaker 1: spin machine trying to say that what somebody did with
Speaker 1: the original document's photoshop and circulating makes it though they
Speaker 1: are doctored, urging caution, when if you read carefully, they
Speaker 1: do not dispute one word of what we will report
Speaker 1: to everyone today and what others have been able to
Speaker 1: report from these documents. Yeah, in fact, they're pressed on
Speaker 1: whether Okay, so you've said that there are some things
Speaker 1: that were changed, we know about the casualty figures, any
Speaker 1: other specifics that you want to give us, and they're
Speaker 1: like no, no, and I mean, listen, I think it's
Speaker 1: important to put every caveat out there that it is
Speaker 1: entirely possible that the documents have been altered, that the
Speaker 1: information does not accurately accurately reflect intelligence assessments that were
Speaker 1: being shared in highly classified settings at the time. But
Speaker 1: I think common sense would indicate if they had found
Speaker 1: other errors, you'd probably know about them, because they highlighted
Speaker 1: that casualty one right away. Every single article that you
Speaker 1: read about these which with good reason make sure to
Speaker 1: point out, Okay, this, you know casualty number was altered
Speaker 1: after the fact, that calls in a question all of them.
Speaker 1: But again, if they had actually found other errors, and
Speaker 1: you can be damn sure they've been going through these
Speaker 1: things with a fine tooth comb ever since they discovered them,
Speaker 1: which was just recently, by the way, which is a
Speaker 1: whole other, separate, interesting issue, if they had found anything else,
Speaker 1: we would know all about it. Let me just read
Speaker 1: directly from the transcript of the briefing, this part where
Speaker 1: they're urging caution about the way that reporting moves forward
Speaker 1: with these documents. He says, I just want to encourage
Speaker 1: you to be mindful not just about the impact of
Speaker 1: reposting these photos, but of the reporting around the photos,
Speaker 1: and remind you that to be mindful of reporting carefully
Speaker 1: on this subject. Disclosure of sensitive classified material can have
Speaker 1: tremendous implications, not only for our national security, but could
Speaker 1: lead to people losing their lives. The Secretary and Department
Speaker 1: of Defense and the United States government take this apparent
Speaker 1: unauthorized disclosure extremely seriously, and this is a top priority
Speaker 1: for US now. With past leaks, whether it was Edward Snowan,
Speaker 1: whether it was Julian Nsanje and some of the WikiLeaks revelations,
Speaker 1: this is their go to line always that you're putting
Speaker 1: lives at risk by disclosing this information. I mean the
Speaker 1: sort of claims they made about the Assage and Snowden
Speaker 1: revelations in particular. We're totally over the top about how
Speaker 1: this would devastate our intelligence gathering abilities, and this would
Speaker 1: put American lives at risk all around the world. They've
Speaker 1: never been able to point to a single example where
Speaker 1: that was actually true, which again, you know that if
Speaker 1: there was one, we would all know about it. So
Speaker 1: it's just important to remember while listen, we have been
Speaker 1: as careful as we possibly can be in our own
Speaker 1: reporting around these documents because we don't want to get played.
Speaker 1: We want to provide you with the most accurate information.
Speaker 1: We certainly don't want to be responsible for any sort
Speaker 1: of a dangerous situation anywhere around the world. It's also
Speaker 1: important to keep in mind that, you know, they're a
Speaker 1: little bit the boy who cried wolf on this, because
Speaker 1: they have alleged in the past that these you know,
Speaker 1: leaks would be an explosive, terrible damaging situation for our
Speaker 1: national security, and it was never actually the case. Bingo.
Speaker 1: So with all all of that, with the exposition, let's
Speaker 1: get to something that we're very proud to be able
Speaker 1: to offer to all of you. This is an extraordinary
Speaker 1: story and let's go and put it up there on
Speaker 1: the screen. So in our perusal of the documents, here
Speaker 1: is what we found. These documents show President Zelensky privately
Speaker 1: suggested striking a Russian deployment location inside of Rostov, Russia
Speaker 1: using drones. Let me repeat that again, President Zelenski in
Speaker 1: a faiza basically a spy warrant document and where we
Speaker 1: were spying on him privately suggested to his top generals
Speaker 1: that they use Ukrainian drones to strike Russian troops inside
Speaker 1: of Russia. Zelensky quote told his commander in chief that
Speaker 1: Ukraine does not have long range missiles capable of striking
Speaker 1: Russian troops deeper inside of Russia, nor anything to attack them,
Speaker 1: suggesting a good opportunity. The private intelligence assessment indicates Zelensky
Speaker 1: sees a lack of long range missiles as limiting his
Speaker 1: ability to strike deeper inside of Russia, despite previous promises
Speaker 1: he does not aim to do so by US authorities.
Speaker 1: Now why does that matter? And I'm again actually have
Speaker 1: the raw document in front of me in which we
Speaker 1: suggest a couple of things. One, we are privately spying
Speaker 1: on Zelenski because we don't trust him, because we want
Speaker 1: to figure out what he really wants to do. Two, well,
Speaker 1: how many times have we been assured here that longer
Speaker 1: range missiles by Ukraine and for their defenses will only
Speaker 1: be used in a defensive purpose. Now, look, you could argue,
Speaker 1: you know theoretically that it is defense. Now grant strategically.
Speaker 1: It's certainly a whole other thing to be striking inside
Speaker 1: of Russia militarily. And this actually proves beyond a shadow
Speaker 1: of a doubt that this happened in twenty eighth of February,
Speaker 1: not that long ago. That Zelenski maintains has the desire,
Speaker 1: has the will to strike Russia, but only lacks the capability.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that they talk about inside of
Speaker 1: this intelligence document Crystal is that they were trying to
Speaker 1: do this or wanted to do this because it happened
Speaker 1: to be in the range of some of their Ukrainian
Speaker 1: drones that they might have been able to get to
Speaker 1: in Rostov. That they didn't have the capability to strike
Speaker 1: deeper inside of Russia, but have the desire to, And
Speaker 1: specifically his lamenting of not having the long range missiles
Speaker 1: shows you he we know what he wants to do
Speaker 1: with them, right, It's how many times have we been
Speaker 1: assured here they will not use it to strike inside
Speaker 1: of Russia. Now once again, you cannot You cannot be
Speaker 1: upset at a person who is at war for wanting
Speaker 1: to strike the enemy wherever the enemy is, But you
Speaker 1: can be upset at us policymakers who have assured us
Speaker 1: time and time again that this is not something that
Speaker 1: they want to do, that is not something that they're
Speaker 1: going to drag us into that. You know, this is
Speaker 1: a blood brotherhood where both of our interests are entirely aligned. No,
Speaker 1: he wants to strike inside of Russia. It's right here,
Speaker 1: directly inside of the US intelligence assessment. And apparently we
Speaker 1: don't even trust him enough not to listen to every
Speaker 1: single one of his most minute conversations. So I think
Speaker 1: this is an extraordinarily significant story. I'm not a surprise
Speaker 1: that it's been not reported yet by the mainstream media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen it only reference one time where the headline
Speaker 1: that they went with I believe it was over at
Speaker 1: CNN was like US spying on Zelenski. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not the headline. Like, what is he's saying. He's
Speaker 1: saying he wants to strike inside of Russia specifically, and
Speaker 1: not being able to because he does not have long
Speaker 1: range missile systems. When somebody tells you who they are,
Speaker 1: you should believe them. I mean, this is clear as
Speaker 1: day as to exactly why we have to be extraordinarily
Speaker 1: careful when dealing with Ukrainians because they desire to escalate
Speaker 1: this war much to a very much higher degree, which
Speaker 1: would be a catastrophe for all of us. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: this really exposes once again the lie that our interests
Speaker 1: in the Ukrainian interests are exactly aligned. Now, there may
Speaker 1: be some you know, critical overlap there, but ultimately it
Speaker 1: is in Ukraine's interest. And again I don't blame Zelensky
Speaker 1: for this, for his strategic calculus, for trying to do
Speaker 1: whatever he can in order to win this war, take
Speaker 1: back however much territory he can. It's or it does
Speaker 1: strike his enemy. I don't blame him, but it is
Speaker 1: in the Ukrainian interest to drag us fully into this war,
Speaker 1: to have some sort of an escalation that causes Russia
Speaker 1: to retally in a way that forces us to fully
Speaker 1: directly engage in this war above and beyond what we
Speaker 1: have already done. That is in his strategic interest. That
Speaker 1: might be the only way that he actually has a
Speaker 1: shot to out and out, you know, win and reclaim
Speaker 1: all of his territory that he has lost. So it's
Speaker 1: really important to keep that in mind and clearly behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, even as US policymakers have been giving us
Speaker 1: all sorts of assurances and have been claiming that our
Speaker 1: interests in the Ukrainian interests are perfectly aligned and we
Speaker 1: should just support Ukraine in whatever it is that they
Speaker 1: want to do. Clearly, behind the scenes they know differently.
Speaker 1: And let me also say this in terms of making
Speaker 1: the case to the American public about what our involvement
Speaker 1: should be and what type of weapons we should ship.
Speaker 1: If they're saying publicly, if Biden and co. Are saying
Speaker 1: publicly that we should just give the Ukrainians whatever they want,
Speaker 1: support them however best you know, suits them to win
Speaker 1: the war, then it doesn't make any sense to say,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to give them long range missiles
Speaker 1: or we're not going to give them fight or jos.
Speaker 1: And so you end up with a situation where you're
Speaker 1: very vulnerable to public pressure from you know, the many
Speaker 1: hawks that go on cable news or that give quotes
Speaker 1: to the New York Times and the Washington Post saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: if we're all in for Ukraine and if we just
Speaker 1: want to support Ukraine and whatever they want to do,
Speaker 1: how can you possibly deny them these weapons that they
Speaker 1: say are critical to their fight. This is the real
Speaker 1: reason why. Now I don't think Biden has been very restrained.
Speaker 1: There's obviously been huge escalation and what we have shipped,
Speaker 1: but so far in terms of the longest range missiles,
Speaker 1: they have resisted. And I am one hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: it's because of intelligence like this that shows we could
Speaker 1: easily end up with them striking farther inside of Russia
Speaker 1: and a potential escalatory situation where we get dragged directly
Speaker 1: into this conflict. Tell us the truth, tell us why
Speaker 1: you don't want to give it to um. This is why,
Speaker 1: because they want to strike inside of Russia. And one
Speaker 1: month before Zelensky privately told that too. Again the top
Speaker 1: general inside of Ukraine, go ahead and put this up
Speaker 1: there on the screen. He was here in Washington and
Speaker 1: on his tour around the West asking for what long
Speaker 1: range missiles and jets from the west. Now I think
Speaker 1: we can say unequivocally he wants longer range missiles and
Speaker 1: jets so he can strike inside of Russia. Yes, also
Speaker 1: to defend Ukraine, but that is not the only reason.
Speaker 1: It's not only just a challenge air superiority over Ukrainian airspace.
Speaker 1: It's to strike inside of Russia. Yeah, and we have people.
Speaker 1: You know, the criticism is, well, what would you expect
Speaker 1: him to do? I expect him to do exactly what
Speaker 1: he's doing. He's doing what is best for his country.
Speaker 1: But we need to do what is best for our country.
Speaker 1: And this shows you the limiting principle, and it also
Speaker 1: shows you how absolutely full of it. So many of
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian hawks are in saying that we should trust Zelensky.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: Ambassador Michael McFall, you know, the former US Ambassador of Russia,
Speaker 1: one of the chief hawks in this entire debate, just
Speaker 1: you know, last year was slamming President by for not
Speaker 1: sending Ukraine long range advanced missile systems. He's also been
Speaker 1: somebody advocating for sending NATO jets and others to them.
Speaker 1: And that's one of those where they just don't seem
Speaker 1: to understand clearly, or maybe they do, that this is
Speaker 1: exactly what Ukraine wants. I mean, they are advocating for
Speaker 1: an incredibly dangerous position, trying to put our faith in
Speaker 1: somebody whose interests far supersede hours and they're unable to
Speaker 1: think about what the second of the third order consequences are.
Speaker 1: Combine that with the reporting that we were able to
Speaker 1: bring everybody yesterday about China's redlines in this conflict and
Speaker 1: what would lead them to give a lethal aid to Russia.
Speaker 1: They said specifically that NATO provided Washington provided missile systems,
Speaker 1: jets or any other weaponry that strikes inside of Russia
Speaker 1: would change the strategic calculus of Beijing and would lead
Speaker 1: them most likely to provide lethal weapons to the Russian government.
Speaker 1: That's it. So not only then would we find ourselves
Speaker 1: in a conffrontation with Russia, which itself would be a catastrophe,
Speaker 1: but then you have two nuclear arms superpowers and really
Speaker 1: the world's largest power outside of the United States coming
Speaker 1: in completely on the side of the other, which also,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the other thing that would be
Speaker 1: a disaster for Ukraine, not just for the United States.
Speaker 1: It would be a disaster for They're the ones who
Speaker 1: would die, and who's you know, whose territory would just
Speaker 1: be even more ravage than it only currently is. So
Speaker 1: this is one where we need to be responsible about
Speaker 1: about the way that we operate. But most importantly, like
Speaker 1: we have the cold hard evidence now he wants to
Speaker 1: strike inside of Russia. So the debate now has to
Speaker 1: be do you want to strike inside of Russia? If
Speaker 1: you're cool with that, okay, but you need to be
Speaker 1: honest with us, with Americans, and with everybody about exactly
Speaker 1: what you are proposing, because otherwise you're just full of it.
Speaker 1: I think that several pieces of potential revelations within these
Speaker 1: leak documents really show us how close we actually are
Speaker 1: to World War three. And I know it's easy to
Speaker 1: hear those words, and we've been warning of the risks
Speaker 1: of escalation for a long time now, basically from the
Speaker 1: beginning of this war. You know, maybe we sound like
Speaker 1: a broken record on this, But when you combine those
Speaker 1: two pieces of how close China is to coming on
Speaker 1: basically fully on the side of Russia, and how close
Speaker 1: Ukraine is to launching the type of long range missile
Speaker 1: strikes within deep within Russia that could cause China to
Speaker 1: come in on their side, that could cause Russia to
Speaker 1: escalate directly against US our NATO allies, dragging us in.
Speaker 1: What else do you call that other than World War three?
Speaker 1: So I think it's really important to take away from
Speaker 1: these documents just how close to the edge we are
Speaker 1: just how important every single one of these decisions about
Speaker 1: what type of weapons we send and how many we send,
Speaker 1: and what's our timeframe, and what we're doing to apply
Speaker 1: pressure to push for negotiations rather than trying to extend
Speaker 1: this wars has been our policy thus far. Every single
Speaker 1: one of those decisions is absolutely crucial. I hope that's
Speaker 1: the biggest thing that people take away from this because
Speaker 1: at times during this war, during I would say the
Speaker 1: entirety of this war, there has been a stunning and
Speaker 1: disturbing lack of public debate, lack of ability to dissent,
Speaker 1: lack of ability to consider what the strategic risks are
Speaker 1: in any of these decisions. You're just sort of like
Speaker 1: smeared and dismissed if you raise any of these concerns.
Speaker 1: And that has got to stop, because this is a
Speaker 1: very very perilous situation. Okay, so there you go. Let's
Speaker 1: go to the next part here. We're very also proud
Speaker 1: to offer this to you. This has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with Ukraine. This was buried deep inside of the documents
Speaker 1: and yet is stunning. Nonetheless, let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: it up there on the screen that we can offer
Speaker 1: to all of you a absolutely fascinating part of a
Speaker 1: US intelligence assessment. They show us that private INCEEL says
Speaker 1: that increased five G services are increasing the risk of
Speaker 1: satellite interference that will disrupt commercial and military communications. The
Speaker 1: assessment warrants that some of the new five G frequencies
Speaker 1: could encroach on some satellite communications for the US military,
Speaker 1: and could even occur if military satellites are on a
Speaker 1: separate frequency. Now, I know that this is not exactly
Speaker 1: breaking news to people who are very interested in all this,
Speaker 1: but it's a whole other thing to actually see it
Speaker 1: directly described in a private US intelligence assessment. And also
Speaker 1: this specific assessment was marked secret and also not to
Speaker 1: be shared with foreign intelligence services aka the Five Eyes
Speaker 1: intelligence and they are actually specifically citing satellite communications SATCOM
Speaker 1: that they rely on. This it appears to be comes
Speaker 1: from an intelligence warning crystal inside of the National Cognizance Office,
Speaker 1: I believe, which is actually one of the most secretive
Speaker 1: parts of the entire US intelligence community. There are seventeen
Speaker 1: different US intelligence agencies. This is the one that is
Speaker 1: responsible for all military spy satellites around the world. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it remains one of the most critical parts of US
Speaker 1: spy infrastructure. So for them to be warning this is Look,
Speaker 1: all I would say is, I know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of five G conspiracies and all that stuff out there,
Speaker 1: but you look at this, clearly it's disrupting something. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? How are we going to get around it?
Speaker 1: Is there a technical fix all of that? I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure because clearly what they point to within this
Speaker 1: is that a they don't have a technical fix, and
Speaker 1: b that even if you were on a different frequency,
Speaker 1: yeah than the five G network, that it will still
Speaker 1: disrupt potential military and communication satellite infrastructure that the US
Speaker 1: relies on so heavily. I know literally nothing about this
Speaker 1: except what I read over like the last day. Apparently
Speaker 1: there was already huge concerns from the airline industry about
Speaker 1: the way five G could interfere with aviation, and so
Speaker 1: there have been these like deadlines that are consistently extended
Speaker 1: about deploying five G in and around airports because of
Speaker 1: these concerns. But based on my day's old knowledge of
Speaker 1: any of this, apparently that's because they're on the same frequency.
Speaker 1: The fact that it would have an impact on separate
Speaker 1: frequencies seems to me to be significant here. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean again, a lot of this is already publicly known. Yeah, privately,
Speaker 1: there's been warnings about this. The SpaceX has actually warned
Speaker 1: about five G interference, saying quote, they will make Starlink
Speaker 1: Internet unusable because they said that the dishes efforts on
Speaker 1: five G would actually result in a huge interference with
Speaker 1: Starlink service. There's no reason to say that Starlink satellites
Speaker 1: are somehow different necessarily than yes, communication satellites or US
Speaker 1: spy satellites. That said, I just think it is fascinating
Speaker 1: to see it inside of this private US intelligence assessment.
Speaker 1: It's certainly one thing to talk about it in kind
Speaker 1: of the open commercial space environment, but it also shows you,
Speaker 1: like the military and their spy satellites are not above
Speaker 1: also being blocked by five G. I mean yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean in terms of some of the stories inside of
Speaker 1: these documents that have nothing to do with Ukraine, that
Speaker 1: was one that really jumped out of me and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh wow, I was like, this is significant enough.
Speaker 1: This also takes us back to what this document even is. Look,
Speaker 1: we don't exactly know where it came from. However, the
Speaker 1: current speculation is that this is very likely part of
Speaker 1: a large briefing booklet that is given to somebody like
Speaker 1: the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ergo. It
Speaker 1: very likely came from somebody around the Chairman of the
Speaker 1: Joint Chiefs. There's an office of the Joint Chiefs of
Speaker 1: Staff here in Washington inside of the Pentagon where they
Speaker 1: would aggregate this type of intelligence and deliver it to
Speaker 1: principles and give them like a briefing booklet. And clearly
Speaker 1: this was significant enough for them to include it because
Speaker 1: and this takes some of the background, how do you
Speaker 1: even get some of your stuff included in the daily briefing?
Speaker 1: Based upon from what I've been able to read from
Speaker 1: people who've been involved in this, it's actually a real process.
Speaker 1: It's like a war between all the intel agencies to see,
Speaker 1: like what is the most significant parts of this, what
Speaker 1: should be able to put What do these senior leaders
Speaker 1: really need to know? It was enough for one of
Speaker 1: the most principal military policymakers here in the US to
Speaker 1: be warned about it inside of this briefing book, not
Speaker 1: saying it's a catastrophe, just that they found it significant
Speaker 1: enough to include inside of their briefing. Interesting that's all
Speaker 1: I can really say. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know again,
Speaker 1: the fact that this was all revealed is incredibly embarrassing
Speaker 1: and humiliating for the Pentagon and for all of our
Speaker 1: intelligence agencies. Oh yes, absolutely, Okay, so take that what
Speaker 1: you will. Five G. It's interfering. We don't know what
Speaker 1: that means. We just wanted you to know that it's
Speaker 1: part of the briefing booklet, and we think that's something
Speaker 1: our government is concerned about. They're concerned about it, so
Speaker 1: maybe we should be concerned about it. All right, Let's
Speaker 1: go to the final part here about these documents. Just
Speaker 1: how did these come about? So, like I said, Bellincat,
Speaker 1: which you know, it's an organization, very controversial. They did
Speaker 1: their investigation. How other outlets are looking into it, relying
Speaker 1: on little bits and clues. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up there on the screen. The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: relying both on Bellingcat reporting but some of their own
Speaker 1: original reporting, says one of the most significant leaks of
Speaker 1: highly classified information in recent history began amongst a small
Speaker 1: group of posters on a messaging channel that were trafficked
Speaker 1: in memes, jokes, and quote racist talk. Now, first of all,
Speaker 1: any Internet community that is anonymous will of course devolve
Speaker 1: into all kinds of shit posting, So let's not say
Speaker 1: that that's necessarily a bad thing for this group. Now,
Speaker 1: what exactly was posted there? An anonymous member of this group,
Speaker 1: which has just over a dozen users, started posting files,
Speaker 1: many labeled as top secret sometime in January, including some
Speaker 1: of the intercepted communications we've talked about here about US
Speaker 1: allies the details of American penetration plans inside of Russia. Then,
Speaker 1: these documents, which actually at one time numbered in the hundreds,
Speaker 1: actually stayed in this tiny discord group up until early March.
Speaker 1: Basically nobody in the group found it significant enough to publicize.
Speaker 1: Nobody even Discord was really aware of it, nobody in
Speaker 1: the public. And over these one to two month period
Speaker 1: more and more of these documents began appearing inside of
Speaker 1: this discord. Then, though, another user who was part of
Speaker 1: this group reposted several dozen images to another group with
Speaker 1: a much larger audience. This is kind of when the
Speaker 1: trail picks up. That is where at quote at least
Speaker 1: ten files migrated to a Minecraft computer game Discord server.
Speaker 1: Then what happened is that on Wednesday, Russian propaganda accounts
Speaker 1: on Telegram, which I have now joined, so thank you Telegram.
Speaker 1: My phone is now full of crylic messaging. They what
Speaker 1: they did is they took those repurposed. Specifically, the Kia
Speaker 1: document spread like wildfire, and that's when Counterpoints covered it
Speaker 1: for the very first time on Friday with the initial indication.
Speaker 1: Since that time on Friday, the Counterpoints covered it, we
Speaker 1: and some other outlets have been able to obtain a
Speaker 1: portion of these documents. Unfortunately we have nobody, it seems
Speaker 1: bit from what I can tell, and I've gone deep,
Speaker 1: has the original set of the hundreds of documents that
Speaker 1: this man posted. Discord nuked the original server. They nuked
Speaker 1: the Minecraft server as well, and currently you know, we
Speaker 1: have about half of what was publicly posted on these
Speaker 1: on this website. But the other By the way, if
Speaker 1: you have them, police, please send it to us. I
Speaker 1: would love to read it. But from what I can tell,
Speaker 1: based on some of the forensic other people that I've
Speaker 1: interacted with around this crystal, they kind of appear to
Speaker 1: be gone. Yeah, for us, none the mainstream outlet's have
Speaker 1: the meme. No nobody, everybody like the most anybody has
Speaker 1: is what we've been able to obtain and so yeah,
Speaker 1: those original documents, like i'd have to pursue presume you'd
Speaker 1: have to presume the Russian government has them, You'd have
Speaker 1: to presume that the US government has them. But they
Speaker 1: have managed to it seems like Holly scrub them from
Speaker 1: the Internet. I mean, one of the things that's fascinating
Speaker 1: here is sometimes you can delude yourself into thinking that
Speaker 1: the US government it acts in the way that it's
Speaker 1: portrayed in the military, in the in the movies like
Speaker 1: this Super you know, high tech, they're on top of
Speaker 1: their game in every way. But it's extraordinary these documents.
Speaker 1: They were hanging out there for months before anybody noticed,
Speaker 1: before the US government noticed, And I mean, you can
Speaker 1: sort of understand it, because how could you possibly be
Speaker 1: monitoring like all of the twenty thousand discord servers, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But it's just kind of wild to think that this
Speaker 1: top secret, highly classified information has been out there publicly
Speaker 1: posted for months and it only just recently came to
Speaker 1: the attention of the news media and the US government,
Speaker 1: who are completely scrambling now. And you know, they had
Speaker 1: a quote in here to give you a sense of
Speaker 1: how freaked out they how angry and upset and like humiliate,
Speaker 1: embarrassed whatever they are about this disclosure. They interviewed a
Speaker 1: former FBI senior executive who now is with some government
Speaker 1: contracting firm, and he said they're going to be looking
Speaker 1: to get to the bottom of who did it as
Speaker 1: expeditiously as possible. They're going to be sparing no resource.
Speaker 1: The FBI is approaching this as if someone has committed
Speaker 1: a treasonous act. And one of the things they point
Speaker 1: to that will be relevant in terms of their search
Speaker 1: is something we mentioned briefly yesterday, which is that if
Speaker 1: you look at these documents, you know it's they were
Speaker 1: folded up, they're unfolded. They try to like flatten them
Speaker 1: ount and then they just laid them on top of
Speaker 1: like whatever was around and took pictures of them. And
Speaker 1: so in the background of the documents you can see
Speaker 1: what they describe as a variety of items that you
Speaker 1: can see in the margin of the photos, including gorilla glue, shoes,
Speaker 1: and instructions for a glasshawk HD spotting scope, details they
Speaker 1: say could facilitate the search for the leaker. So they
Speaker 1: are going to come after this individual or individuals with
Speaker 1: the full force of the US government. But you know,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, this person, frankly is a hero ohes
Speaker 1: to get this kind of accurate, you know, very recent,
Speaker 1: like weeks old, information about the US's view of this war,
Speaker 1: what we're doing, what our understanding of what Ukraine is doing,
Speaker 1: understanding of what Russia is doing, are understanding of what
Speaker 1: our allies are doing. It's absolutely critical for the US
Speaker 1: public to be informed about the reality of what's happening,
Speaker 1: not the spin that's being fed to us by the
Speaker 1: US government and regurgitating and regurgitated in large part by
Speaker 1: mainstream news outlets. And the last thing I'll say, Soccer
Speaker 1: is I think it's been telling too some of these outlets.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to the smirk them. They've
Speaker 1: done a good job reporting something sound. I think the
Speaker 1: New York Times in particular, like publishing some of the documents,
Speaker 1: but the way they frame it, you know, it's very
Speaker 1: selective in the pieces that they choose to report out.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the parts that's certainly most
Speaker 1: sensitive is the fact that Ukraine is may have already
Speaker 1: run out of like their air defense missiles and the
Speaker 1: location of their air defenses. All of that is very
Speaker 1: sensitive and that got reported out understandably so, but that's
Speaker 1: the sort of thing that can actually strengthen the hand
Speaker 1: of the hawk by saying like, oh, we got to
Speaker 1: do more, and we got to help them, and we
Speaker 1: got to send him fight our jets, et cetera. Things
Speaker 1: like China's red lines, things like the fact that Zelensky
Speaker 1: does want to strike within Russia and the only reason
Speaker 1: he hasn't is because we haven't provided long term missiles.
Speaker 1: Interesting that those pieces don't get reported out. And then
Speaker 1: the other thing that they consistently emphasize is like, Oh,
Speaker 1: we're so deep inside of like Russia. We've got these
Speaker 1: great sources in terms of Russia, We've infiltrated all of
Speaker 1: their various agencies, et cetera. So even the way that
Speaker 1: this has been reported out by the mainstream press, I
Speaker 1: think has been revealing of a particular hawkish bias that
Speaker 1: exists across the board. Whoa absolutely, I mean even today,
Speaker 1: first the front page editorial from Wall Street Journal wartime
Speaker 1: intelligence leaks can sink allies and they're basically going after
Speaker 1: the leaker, being like he's responsible for possibly sinking Ukraine.
Speaker 1: And this is America's fault. No, it's whatever has happened
Speaker 1: here is not on the leaker. If anything, it's on
Speaker 1: the US government for lying to us and the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: rankly about what their intentions are and about their ability
Speaker 1: to sustain You're the ones who lied. He just told
Speaker 1: us the true or she whoever this person is. I'm
Speaker 1: guessing he just based on some of the paraphernalia in
Speaker 1: the background. But whoever this person is, they did us
Speaker 1: all a great service. In fact, in the history of
Speaker 1: significant military leaks, this appears to be probably the most
Speaker 1: significant national security leak since the Edward Snowden documents. And
Speaker 1: in those documents, what a lot of analysts have been
Speaker 1: saying is what makes us one the most extraordinary is
Speaker 1: the real time nature of it. Is that you and
Speaker 1: I can sit here, I've literally got the doc in
Speaker 1: front of me, and i can read what President Zelensky
Speaker 1: was privately saying. According to the US intelligence community a
Speaker 1: month and a half ago. That is that's really the
Speaker 1: crazy part. Some of the biggest revelations from Wiki leaks
Speaker 1: and other they were years old. Now at that point,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying they weren't important. They absolutely were. The
Speaker 1: Wiki leaks. What even in terms of the National Security Age,
Speaker 1: the NSA leaks that Edward Snowden gave us, these were
Speaker 1: programs that were sp spent, spun up Post nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: They detailed the security and forstructionally them in place for decades.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is real time data from only a
Speaker 1: month ago about Ukraine's possible counter offensive. Oh turns out
Speaker 1: that the US intelligence and military community privately believes there's
Speaker 1: no way that they're going to have a successful Spring
Speaker 1: counter offensive. They also believe the same thing for Russia.
Speaker 1: Some of the other leagues. One we didn't even get
Speaker 1: to is Egypt. You know this is a crazy league. Egypt.
Speaker 1: It was inside the docks. The Washington Post ended up
Speaker 1: reporting it out. They on February first, were privately going
Speaker 1: to send weapons to Russia. They are the second largest
Speaker 1: recipient of US military aid in the world, and they
Speaker 1: did so privately right after Secretary of State Anthony Blincoln
Speaker 1: was there on the ground, we have no respect, like
Speaker 1: the rest of the world looks at us like a joke.
Speaker 1: They're willing to take our money, but then they won't
Speaker 1: even do what we want them to do. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying Egypt do what we want them to do. More.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is it is clear that outside of
Speaker 1: the Western world, the entire Ukraine first narrative, Russia bad
Speaker 1: all this stuff, they are just not buying it. That
Speaker 1: we're not just talking about Brazil, India, and China. We
Speaker 1: are talking about each We're talking about South Korea, We're
Speaker 1: talking about Israel, some of the closest US allies over decades.
Speaker 1: So I think that is the most significant important thing
Speaker 1: that has come out of these documents. And unfortunately, though,
Speaker 1: given the small number of people that were inside this
Speaker 1: discord server Crystal, it doesn't take a genius to figure
Speaker 1: out that all the DOJ has to do is subpoena
Speaker 1: the IP addresses of all ten twelve people who or
Speaker 1: whatever who are inside of this thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: whoever it is, good luck to you. That's all I
Speaker 1: can say. Yeah, yeah, for sure. There was also some
Speaker 1: stuff in there about the UAE deepening there oh okays
Speaker 1: right with Russia. That was one that the mainstream press
Speaker 1: has reported. In mid January, officials claimed UAE security service
Speaker 1: officials in Russia had agreed to work together against US
Speaker 1: and UK intelligence agencies. According to Newly acquired signals intelligence.
Speaker 1: That's from one of these documents as well. So it
Speaker 1: really does show you as you were saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: what we wanted the world to do with regard to
Speaker 1: the Ukraine War is not did not come to fruition
Speaker 1: even within NATO. I mean you see, you know France
Speaker 1: and Germany who certainly have a different view towards China
Speaker 1: and different approach here. There's a lot of divides and
Speaker 1: we have been wildly unable to really get the world
Speaker 1: on our side and convince them that this is truly
Speaker 1: some fight over democratic values or human rights or anything
Speaker 1: love the sort. They're not buying it. Let's go to
Speaker 1: our next block here. This is probably the most significant
Speaker 1: event actually outside of the League documents. So currently the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister is traveling around the world in
Speaker 1: a bid to try and get countries to broker peace.
Speaker 1: One of those is New Delhi. Let's go and put
Speaker 1: this up though or on the screen. The Deputy Foreign
Speaker 1: Minister actually appeared on national television and wants New Delhi
Speaker 1: to quote be more involved in helping resolve its conflict
Speaker 1: with Russia and has even sought now an actual private
Speaker 1: visit by Indian Prime Minister Naram the Ramoli and other
Speaker 1: top officials to Kiev. She told the broadcaster that Kiev
Speaker 1: has expected India to invite Ukrainian politicians as well to
Speaker 1: participate in the G twenty and intensify political dialogue that
Speaker 1: is happening in India, incepts that will be held in September,
Speaker 1: where New Delhi is actually hosting the event. The reason
Speaker 1: why that this is so important is a couple over ones. One.
Speaker 1: India was the bore a tremendous amount of brunt of
Speaker 1: public criticism in the West and specifically here in the
Speaker 1: US for not going along with sanctioning Russia and specifically
Speaker 1: for continuing to buy Russian oil. They were you know, oh,
Speaker 1: they're taking the Russian side. They're taking the side of
Speaker 1: the barbarians. They're not, you know, standing up for Ukraine
Speaker 1: and India from the beginning was like, look, we're not
Speaker 1: saying we like what's going on in Russia. They're like,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna buy cheap oil if you idiots aren't
Speaker 1: gonna buy it. And in terms of this whole democracy
Speaker 1: you know, under attack thing, They're like, that's just not
Speaker 1: how we see the world. We do what's best for
Speaker 1: our country. It's realism, literally, one oh one. Well, I
Speaker 1: find it incredibly ironic that now whenever Ukraine appears to
Speaker 1: be wanting help brokering peace deals, and I think we
Speaker 1: know why if we take a look at those classified
Speaker 1: slides around Ukrainian air defense, who are they turning to India, China,
Speaker 1: France three of the countries which France you know, of course,
Speaker 1: is applied weapons. Ukraine has always not really been on
Speaker 1: board with the US and the UK and the the
Speaker 1: like Latvia, Estonia, the Baltic states in their hawk istry
Speaker 1: of the conflict. They have always wanted piece. That's why
Speaker 1: Macron was inside. It was literally just in Beijing. Our
Speaker 1: producer mac flagged a video where he released this bizarre
Speaker 1: China highlight reel of his visit to Beijing where he's like,
Speaker 1: He's like, French loves Beijing. We all have great friends.
Speaker 1: It's all fun, fun and games. Apparently his visit did
Speaker 1: not go very well. Jichhingping kind of laughed him off
Speaker 1: the stage and he committed a very bad diplomatic faux pa.
Speaker 1: But once again, when Ukraine wants weapons and they want
Speaker 1: the conflicts to keep going, they come to Washington when
Speaker 1: they actually want peace. They're not coming to Washington. They're
Speaker 1: going to New Delhi. That's what they want Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Modi to visit them. And here's the other thing. If
Speaker 1: you're Modi, why would you do it? At this point?
Speaker 1: You have been denigrated, You have been you have been
Speaker 1: criticized by Zelenski himself for continue to buy Russian oil.
Speaker 1: You have been ostracized by the West, you know, pointed
Speaker 1: to is some war criminal by proxy? What do you care?
Speaker 1: You know at this point? Well, I don't think that's
Speaker 1: the way to look at it, because even though they have,
Speaker 1: you know, done what was best for them in terms
Speaker 1: of trying to buy cheap Russian gas, they still have
Speaker 1: been impacted by the elevated food prices and trade disruptions
Speaker 1: and elevated energy prices. So I do think that there
Speaker 1: is a even if you're just looking cold heart self interest,
Speaker 1: I think they are directly self interested in being a
Speaker 1: part of resolving this conflict. And I also think that
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of like global prestige, you can't,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't do better than being a critical
Speaker 1: part of trying to broker a piece here. That's so
Speaker 1: first of all, you're right, there is a hard power
Speaker 1: case for why they may want to bring it. But second,
Speaker 1: in terms of why and the only way that this
Speaker 1: might actually work, it would be because this would elevate
Speaker 1: India basically to great power status, because I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that they necessarily aren't, but this really would put them
Speaker 1: effectively on the league of DC Beijing and would put
Speaker 1: New Delhi right up there. Because if they were to
Speaker 1: do this, which not necessarily all that much in their
Speaker 1: self interest somewhat but not necessarily, that would elevate them
Speaker 1: to the status of brokering peace deals which are in
Speaker 1: the interest of the two parties, because they have diplomat
Speaker 1: relations with both. Mody you know, has that has had
Speaker 1: that visit with Prime Minister or the President Putin He also,
Speaker 1: I mean he hasn't visited Ukraine, but he hasn't also
Speaker 1: of course been like entirely on the Russian side in
Speaker 1: the way that Beijing has. This might be the only
Speaker 1: actual honest broker in the conflict, which would elevate them
Speaker 1: significantly and give them prestige. But you know, speaking also
Speaker 1: from a Washington perspective, that's not what you want, Like
Speaker 1: you are the ones who are supposed to be the
Speaker 1: global priestmakers, you know, trying to do shuttle diplomacy. That's
Speaker 1: the Kissingerian model. That's something we prided ourselves for years.
Speaker 1: We have no impact on it, We have no influence
Speaker 1: in this well and this whatsoever. Because once you take sides,
Speaker 1: and who is going to trust you to be a
Speaker 1: neutral broker exactly? I mean really clear here We're going
Speaker 1: to talk later about Yemen. Is clear there. It is
Speaker 1: clear with regard to Iron and sat when you take
Speaker 1: clear sides in a conflict, they're not going to come
Speaker 1: to you for peace. They're going to go to countries
Speaker 1: like India or China or Brazil, nations that have tried
Speaker 1: to at least publicly maintain some sort of a plausible
Speaker 1: deniability and neutral status. So I also think that this
Speaker 1: these revelations, you know, this approach to India, it really
Speaker 1: helps to understand why you're now seeing overtures from Zelenski
Speaker 1: to nations like India or even nations like China in
Speaker 1: terms of trying to forge some sort of a diplomatic deal.
Speaker 1: Also some indications from them that they, you know, are
Speaker 1: willing to not try to retake Crimea because you can
Speaker 1: see within these documents that they're not in a strong
Speaker 1: position strategically, and they know that, you know, the US
Speaker 1: has been giving them a blank check, but that may
Speaker 1: not last forever. And they're already critically low of you know,
Speaker 1: certainly air defenses, also ammunition, that they are in a
Speaker 1: difficult place that they don't expect this spring offensive to
Speaker 1: yield anything more than an indefinite stalemate. So that's why
Speaker 1: there is a new seeming interest from Zelenski and actually
Speaker 1: having some sort of negotiated settlement to bring this conflict
Speaker 1: to a close. And it is a catastrophe and embarrassing
Speaker 1: that the US has short circuited any potential peace negotiations
Speaker 1: to date and is being effectively shut out and understandably so,
Speaker 1: of any possible conversations about a diplomatic resolution. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we actually have some of the comments that the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: Deputy Foreign Minister made, let's take a listen to that
Speaker 1: the presidency in G twenty is an important and essential
Speaker 1: role for India. So of course we believe that India
Speaker 1: should be engaged and involved into Ukrainian issue to a
Speaker 1: great extent. We are not in the position of instructing India.
Speaker 1: Of course, we do respect the decisions that are taken
Speaker 1: by India and Prime minist Marremodi with his three D
Speaker 1: attitude diplomacy, dialogue democracy, with his message that he delivered
Speaker 1: in Samarkan that there is no era of war, and
Speaker 1: we do accept it and we do share this message.
Speaker 1: But we think that India's global rule, especially with the
Speaker 1: adverts with the press in twenty with regards to the
Speaker 1: influence in the global self and sharing experience with the
Speaker 1: global seuth and being and living country for the Asian
Speaker 1: African countries is important to also not escape discussion about
Speaker 1: Ukraine because it might seem regional here, it might seem
Speaker 1: distant from here, but it's not. She's referencing Prime Minister
Speaker 1: Modi's speech whenever he appeared before Vladimir Putin and he said,
Speaker 1: this is not an age of war. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a you know, kind of a rebuke to Putin's face
Speaker 1: that happened there. But look, it's just to me, I
Speaker 1: love watching how the Ukrainians act when they're not acting
Speaker 1: in a Western context, whenever they're not here in their
Speaker 1: military outfits, begging for weapons and they're outside of the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Trying to talk to them. It's
Speaker 1: a very different tune, and I think that tune is
Speaker 1: exactly what you see there, and the fact that they
Speaker 1: can't reach out to Washington, they have to look to
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. People who were vilified for
Speaker 1: keeping a neutral stance in this conflict now being the
Speaker 1: ones who might actually be able to bring it to
Speaker 1: an end. And I think that vindicates a lot of
Speaker 1: Indian strategy, Brazilian strategy, and many others who decided not
Speaker 1: to take one side in this. I hope it's successful,
Speaker 1: so we'll keep a close eye on it. And wanted
Speaker 1: to turn to domestic politics and what is unfolding right
Speaker 1: now down in Florida. So we've been talking about the
Speaker 1: fact that abortion politics, ever since Rowe was overturned in
Speaker 1: the Dab Supreme Court decision, have been a total electoral
Speaker 1: disaster for Republicans wherever you stand on the issue. I
Speaker 1: just don't think that's deniable at this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: you saw the pro choice position winning in places like Kansas.
Speaker 1: Just last week, we had in Wisconsin, the most fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty state you could possibly get. You have the
Speaker 1: state Supreme Court seat that is won overwhelmingly by a
Speaker 1: liberal candidate who was running on abortion access and she
Speaker 1: wins by eleven points in the state of Wisconsin. So
Speaker 1: I think the electoral significance of this issue is pretty
Speaker 1: clear At this point. However, Ron DeSantis is moving forward
Speaker 1: with quite an extreme bill that is being passed right
Speaker 1: now through the Florida legislature. Let's go ahead and put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. So he is in the
Speaker 1: lords of political politico, charging ahead on a six week
Speaker 1: abortion ban. They say that the governor's support might seem
Speaker 1: politically risky, but he's been backing restrictive abortion policy for years.
Speaker 1: Apparently he initially signaled support for a six week abortion
Speaker 1: ban during his first race for governor. Currently in Florida,
Speaker 1: they've instituted a fifteen week ban that includes some exemptions
Speaker 1: for the life of the mother, but very limited, and
Speaker 1: I can give you some more details on that. In
Speaker 1: a moment. You have people who are on the religious right,
Speaker 1: who are pro life activists really praising him from making
Speaker 1: this move. They say it makes it clear that DeSantis
Speaker 1: is solidly pro life and he's trying to move the
Speaker 1: ball for the protection of the unborn and can be
Speaker 1: trusted to do that. In the future. That's according to
Speaker 1: the president of the Florida Family Policy Council. And you've
Speaker 1: got some Republican consults I think this is interesting around
Speaker 1: interested to get your reaction on this, who are basically
Speaker 1: saying Desanta's whole play here is to have his list
Speaker 1: of policy accomplishments through the Florida legislature be what positions
Speaker 1: him properly for the Republican primary. So you've got one
Speaker 1: top Republican Florida consultant saying if he decides to run,
Speaker 1: he wants to have the most robust cultural and policy
Speaker 1: conservative list of accomplishments. This makes him pervious to hits
Speaker 1: from the right. And to show you how complicated this is,
Speaker 1: even in the state of Florida, some of the Republicans
Speaker 1: who won in Biden districts actually are not backing the
Speaker 1: six week band. So even within the state of Florida,
Speaker 1: even among the Republican Party, this is quite controversial. But
Speaker 1: you know, personally, I think if DeSantis believes that his
Speaker 1: positioning within the Republican primary is going to be based
Speaker 1: on whatever he does in the Florida legislative session, I
Speaker 1: don't know what race he's writing. Well, this is the issue.
Speaker 1: Let's look at this on the merits. So first of all,
Speaker 1: for the people who are willing to have abortion be
Speaker 1: more of a comps issue, you're going to vote for Trump.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't you vote for Trump? That's actually one third
Speaker 1: of the people who voted for Trump in twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: were pro choice. They just didn't care that much. Then,
Speaker 1: if you are trying to win hardline abortion voters, like evangelicals,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't they just vote for Mike Pence, who's going
Speaker 1: to be for a national abortion band. They're like, he's
Speaker 1: like six weeks. What are you talking about? Six weeks?
Speaker 1: That's way too much. I'm for a full scale ban. Now,
Speaker 1: not a lot of people are for it, but those
Speaker 1: maybe thirteen percent or whatever of the country, but they
Speaker 1: all vote Republican and they're all evangelicals, and they're going
Speaker 1: to support somebody like Pence. So who exactly are you
Speaker 1: targeting here? Basically pushing legislation which is dramatically politically unpopular
Speaker 1: on a national level and most likely in the state
Speaker 1: of Florida. And then second, you are trying to do
Speaker 1: it to burnish your credentials in an almost like targeted
Speaker 1: way that somehow strikes at exactly the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: Like there are two chasms in the debate. There's Trump
Speaker 1: who thinks that the Row versus Way overturn he will
Speaker 1: take credit for it, knows as a disaster, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then there's Pence who is like, no, we didn't go
Speaker 1: far enough. We need to outright ban abortion. Who are
Speaker 1: you going for? There's just not a lot of voters
Speaker 1: in the six week category. They're either basically for a
Speaker 1: ban or they're like ish pro life, I guess. And
Speaker 1: then a lot of people, and even those people most
Speaker 1: likely vote for Trump says he's the one who got
Speaker 1: Roe versus Wade over Tay overturn, or there's just straight
Speaker 1: up pro choice voters, which is some seventy five percent
Speaker 1: or whatever of the entire country. Matt Aglaci has made
Speaker 1: actually a good point about this, which is Ronda Santis's best,
Speaker 1: most compelling lane in the Republican primary is like, I'm
Speaker 1: a more electable version of Trump. And I've always been
Speaker 1: skeptical that that was going to be a winning argument because, frankly,
Speaker 1: I just don't think the GOP base, I don't think
Speaker 1: they see it that way. I think they believe Trump
Speaker 1: is perfectly electable. After all, here was president before. I
Speaker 1: don't think they put the priority on electability that the
Speaker 1: Democratic base seems to. So I was always skeptical of
Speaker 1: that case. But that's his strongest argument. Is like, if
Speaker 1: you want to beat Joe Biden the Democrat, you might
Speaker 1: like Donald Trump. But now we've got a record of
Speaker 1: several election cycles that didn't go well for Republicans. Let's
Speaker 1: go with the guy who is more electable. Passing a
Speaker 1: six week abortion ban, which is insanely unpopular in Florida
Speaker 1: and everywhere else. It's not even really popular with the
Speaker 1: Republican base. It's popular with like the most activist part
Speaker 1: of the religious right, no doubt about it. But this
Speaker 1: is insanely unpopular. How does that make you more electable
Speaker 1: in a general election? And it's not just done this,
Speaker 1: I mean Trump has been hitting him hard on social
Speaker 1: Security and Medicare. DeSantis has positioned himself in terms of
Speaker 1: policy and ideology to the right of Trump, especially on
Speaker 1: issues where the Republican elite like hard right position is
Speaker 1: actually out of step, definitely with the country and actually
Speaker 1: with a significant part of the Republican base. So, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, when you look at this, he's damaging his
Speaker 1: ability to make that electability argument, which is the strongest
Speaker 1: case that he really can make, both to GOP voters
Speaker 1: and to the donors that he will need in order
Speaker 1: to back his campaign. Just to underscore this and how
Speaker 1: unpopular this position is, and frankly, this is actually this
Speaker 1: was not cherry pick. This is one of the maybe
Speaker 1: the more beneficial polls in terms of the six week
Speaker 1: abortion ban. Like it shows that having higher numbers than
Speaker 1: I've seen in some other polls, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: to like sandbag the case. So this is from the
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. According to their survey. First of all,
Speaker 1: sixty percent of voters now say abortion should be legal
Speaker 1: in all or most cases. That has actually gone up
Speaker 1: by five points and reflects the fact that since the
Speaker 1: Dobbs decision, which overturned Row versus Weighed, support for abortion
Speaker 1: rights nationwide has actually gone up, So the pro choice
Speaker 1: position hasn't stayed this fifty to fifty issue that people
Speaker 1: have assumed. The pro choice position has actually become significantly
Speaker 1: more popular, not just in this poll but other polls
Speaker 1: as well. Twenty nine percent said it should be illegal
Speaker 1: except in cases of rape incest, and when the women's
Speaker 1: women's life is in danger, six percent say it should
Speaker 1: be illegal in all cases. Okay, that's down from what
Speaker 1: it used to be was at eleven percent, which was
Speaker 1: still very low, but again shows you that shift. When
Speaker 1: you're specifically talking about an abortion ban at six weeks
Speaker 1: of pregnancy, sixty two percent oppose that ban, just about
Speaker 1: twenty five percent. Twenty five percent say they support a
Speaker 1: six week abortion ban. So this is a wildly unpopular position.
Speaker 1: And we have also seen you know, sometimes things are unpopular,
Speaker 1: but they're not particularly motivating to voters. This issue has
Speaker 1: been extremely motivating for voters in a way that again
Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily foresee. No, no, I don't. I didn't
Speaker 1: foresee it nearly either, I think really because what it
Speaker 1: did is it activated a bunch of people who just
Speaker 1: don't vote that much. I mean, that's where we really
Speaker 1: saw in Wisconsin. I also would just say it really
Speaker 1: under scores the biggest political noose around the Republicans. Next,
Speaker 1: they outperformed dramatically and many elections in Wisconsin except for
Speaker 1: one that happened to do with abortion. So if the
Speaker 1: Democrats can make twenty twenty four all about abortion, it
Speaker 1: will be dramatically to their benefit. It puts Trump in
Speaker 1: a very difficult political position, and you know, I don't
Speaker 1: really know how he can possibly wriggle his way out
Speaker 1: of that one, because you can't disavow your own voters
Speaker 1: while also trying to win over swing voter because they
Speaker 1: basically are diametrically opposed. I saw Ryan Gerduski, who is
Speaker 1: a Desantist supporter, say that the six week ban is
Speaker 1: the single most unpopular thing that Grand DeSantis has ever done,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's interesting too, because that's where the
Speaker 1: institutional GOP is most aligned with him. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: always going to be the toughest one to square. As
Speaker 1: someone who has had three babies, at six weeks, it
Speaker 1: is rare that you even know that you're pregnant, Like
Speaker 1: that's how early you're talking. There's already stories. I was
Speaker 1: just reading these horrible cases that the Washington Post documented
Speaker 1: with the fifteen week ban, which has these limited exceptions
Speaker 1: for the life of the mother. But it's only when
Speaker 1: you really like are on death's door that they will
Speaker 1: you know, even with the fifteen week ban, if you're
Speaker 1: beyond that, that they will actually perform the abortion when
Speaker 1: mother's life may not be you know, imminently in danger
Speaker 1: right at that second, but it's very much at risk.
Speaker 1: They documented these two women who around week eighteen, their
Speaker 1: water broke. Now this is you know, long before fetal viability,
Speaker 1: and these were women who had struggled to carry pregnancies
Speaker 1: to term in the past, and in any other you
Speaker 1: know state where abortion is legal, the standard of care
Speaker 1: is that you offer the women at least the ability
Speaker 1: to have the abortion. The baby is not going to live.
Speaker 1: And if you allow the mother to go through with
Speaker 1: like you know, the misk wait for the miscarriage to happen,
Speaker 1: there are much heightened risk of infection and much heightened
Speaker 1: risk of hemorrhaging. Well, one of these women, she ends
Speaker 1: up hemorrhaging to the point that she loses half of
Speaker 1: her body's blood, nearly dies, has to be put in
Speaker 1: a medically induced coma. So we're already talking about a
Speaker 1: situation where women's lives are at risk, even with something
Speaker 1: like a fifteen week abortion man which is already in Florida.
Speaker 1: You can only imagine the sore of horror stories that
Speaker 1: are going to come out when you have a six
Speaker 1: week ban in place and do you think that the
Speaker 1: press is going to ignore that, you know, what is
Speaker 1: happening to these women and their stories and the way
Speaker 1: that they're being put at risk because of these new policies.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. So so in any case, you know,
Speaker 1: I think he's delusional in terms of the Republican primary
Speaker 1: if he thinks is the legislative record down in Florida
Speaker 1: is going to be what sways voters. At this point,
Speaker 1: you can see the Republican primary is going to be
Speaker 1: dominated by Trump, his indictments, people coming after Trump. That's
Speaker 1: that's the landscape that you've set up. And then if
Speaker 1: your strongest case is on the electability candidate, you are
Speaker 1: just like you know, cutting yourself off at the knees.
Speaker 1: In terms of that position, there's no question a six
Speaker 1: week ban's dramatically politically unpopular for many of the reasons
Speaker 1: that you just cited. I will say fifteen weekman has
Speaker 1: a significant amount of popularity that was at least at
Speaker 1: some point post obs was around like seventy percent approval.
Speaker 1: And look, I mean we in Europe, like Germany has
Speaker 1: a twelve week ban, like I think France is at
Speaker 1: fourteen weeks now. I don't know much broader availability to
Speaker 1: receive care based on risk to the mother. Right the piece,
Speaker 1: he's that they have more exceptions outside of like elective abortion,
Speaker 1: which I think most people are broadly on par with.
Speaker 1: So I'm more saying, like, it seems quite reasonable to
Speaker 1: have some fifteen week standard with the elective or or
Speaker 1: with the proviso that anybody whose life is in danger
Speaker 1: also has access to an abortion, just from a general
Speaker 1: like actual where we could land on all of this
Speaker 1: for a national public policy. I wanted to pull up
Speaker 1: numbers because here's here's part of you know, the public
Speaker 1: sentiment has really shifted post stops consistently, not just in
Speaker 1: this Wall Street Journal poll, but in effectively every gallops pulling,
Speaker 1: Pews polling. People have become more pro choice. I think
Speaker 1: it's partly because they've seen these bands go into effect,
Speaker 1: and they've seen the way that the law has been applied.
Speaker 1: And so when you say in Florida, you know, the
Speaker 1: life of the mothers at risk, they really mean like
Speaker 1: you have to be about to die right then and there.
Speaker 1: They don't take into account, well, if you don't have
Speaker 1: this procedure, you're going to have the baby is not
Speaker 1: going to live like that's off the table. You are
Speaker 1: going to have this elevated risk of massive hemorrhage, threatening
Speaker 1: your life, potential infection. And so you have already numbers
Speaker 1: in states that have the band where women are having
Speaker 1: much worse outcomes in terms of their health during pregnancy,
Speaker 1: or states that don't have these bands into you know,
Speaker 1: that have not been instituted. So I'm looking. The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal poll had numbers I believe on abortions after
Speaker 1: six weeks, as I said, only twenty six percent support it.
Speaker 1: Abortions after fifteen weeks, It's almost identical. It's like twenty
Speaker 1: seven percent support it, maybe thirty. They have this like
Speaker 1: bar chart where they don't give the specific numbers, but
Speaker 1: it's not popular. Maybe it was more popular before these
Speaker 1: bands went into effect, but now that people have seen
Speaker 1: the impact and what it actually means in real terms
Speaker 1: for women's lives, you're talking about a few, you know,
Speaker 1: few more percentage points popularity than the six week abortion band. Yeap.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly possible. I'm more thinking about like
Speaker 1: where some sort of grand bargain actually could be struck
Speaker 1: in terms of where people feel comfortable. I don't know,
Speaker 1: what has any support then just what is it Row
Speaker 1: versus Weighed like the first trimester? Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: think Roe versus Way. Yes, I think that is correct
Speaker 1: because remember Roe versus Weighed was only about you know,
Speaker 1: pre viability, so post via ability then states could do
Speaker 1: whatever they wanted. So in states like Mississippi, I mean
Speaker 1: they basically had with Row versus Wade plus Casey, they
Speaker 1: had already basically banned abortion in the state. There was
Speaker 1: like one clinic open and then that was underpression to close,
Speaker 1: et cetera, and that was permitted. I personally don't support that,
Speaker 1: but that was the landscape ahead of time, and I
Speaker 1: think that is generally where most people are. It's like
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the public, that is, you know, generally
Speaker 1: pro choice generally believes abortion should be available in all
Speaker 1: or most cases. So yeah, I think that's where the
Speaker 1: public sentiment is at this point. I'm not sure though
Speaker 1: about all our most cases, because it is in all
Speaker 1: the most cases include late term abortions. I mean, like
Speaker 1: here in all cases would be late term, most cases
Speaker 1: would be the sorts you know people like how they
Speaker 1: personally define it, I think really is very different. Right,
Speaker 1: But for you know, for a lot of people, they'd
Speaker 1: say most cases is you know, previability or something like that.
Speaker 1: So it's listen, Americans have always had mixed, complicated views
Speaker 1: on the issue, which I understand because I'm not going
Speaker 1: to deny it's like a morally fraud and difficult and
Speaker 1: complicated issue. There's just like no doubt about that. But
Speaker 1: Number one sentiment has moved into the pro choice direction
Speaker 1: post jobs, I think because of the reality some of
Speaker 1: the situation. Number two now, the ground that Republicans are
Speaker 1: exclusively fighting on is definitionally extreme. Yeah, absolutely true, because
Speaker 1: to go further than what the court has already done
Speaker 1: is just definitionly going to put you on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of public opinion in any case. Six weeks, no
Speaker 1: question about it is a single most unpopular thing the
Speaker 1: man will do. Will it matter? We'll find out the
Speaker 1: same respect. There are some warning signs being raised from
Speaker 1: a bunch of Republican strategists. Just some of these quotes
Speaker 1: are funny. So let's go and put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen. From Politico. They say, is Trump dominates the airwaves?
Speaker 1: Quote it feels like effing twenty sixteen Terry Sullivan who
Speaker 1: ran Mark or Rubio's twenty sixteen campaign for president, said
Speaker 1: this is deja vous all over again. Trump dominates media coverage,
Speaker 1: making it impossible for his competitors to get any viage
Speaker 1: or four attraction. Another Republican strategist who supports DeSantis but
Speaker 1: was granted anonymity to speak freely, said, it feels like
Speaker 1: fing twenty sixteen. Is there anything that can suck up
Speaker 1: as much political oxygen in the American political landscape as Trump?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. And then they have this anecdote
Speaker 1: that is brutal. DeSantis went to New York to Long
Speaker 1: Island recently to promote his book or whatever and his
Speaker 1: potential candidacy. He was greeted by, they say, a number
Speaker 1: of New Yorkers in Maga hats and a sign that
Speaker 1: read DeSantis twenty twenty eight. So not this election cycle,
Speaker 1: but maybe next one would give you a shot, suggesting
Speaker 1: you get out of Trump's way. Then Politico went to
Speaker 1: the event where DeSantis was speaking, and they said that
Speaker 1: nearly all of the attendees that they interviewed spoke favorability
Speaker 1: favorably about DeSantis, but said they are already committed to
Speaker 1: supporting the ex president's comeback bid so like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: like him, but you know we're with Trump. Yeah. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: it's twenty sixteen all over again in terms of his
Speaker 1: domination in the race. And I think very specifically for
Speaker 1: a reason, especially as you said, citing the Iglesias point,
Speaker 1: that a lot of what DeSantis does or at least
Speaker 1: says that he wants to do to try to be electable,
Speaker 1: is less politically popular than what Trump wants to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll see which one wins out. I honestly have no idea. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let's get to our current president. He did a
Speaker 1: little interview with Al Roker of the Today Show with
Speaker 1: regard to the Easter egg role. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: two things that are noteworthy here. First of all is
Speaker 1: an ability, persistent inability to communicate his thoughts in any
Speaker 1: coherent manner whatsoever. Second of all, he seems to, for
Speaker 1: I guess the most clearly stated way and the most
Speaker 1: clearly stated way, indicate that he is planning on running
Speaker 1: for president again. Take a listen, will you be taking
Speaker 1: part in the Easter egg roles? Planning on after twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four? I plan on at least three or four
Speaker 1: more Easter egg roles at least three or four more,
Speaker 1: may maybe five, maybe five, maybe maybe six. What the
Speaker 1: hell are you? Are you saying that you would be
Speaker 1: taking part in our upcoming election of twenty four out
Speaker 1: of it, I'll either you're rolling an egg or you know,
Speaker 1: being the good you know, the guy who's pushing him out,
Speaker 1: help help a brother out. Well, I plan on running out,
Speaker 1: but we're not prepared to announce it yet. So plans
Speaker 1: on running but not ready to announce it yet, and
Speaker 1: he plans on being the guy that rolls or pushed
Speaker 1: out all. That's the oddest interaction. Yeah, I mean, al Roker,
Speaker 1: I can't believe that guy is still working. I'm out
Speaker 1: retire man. I'm sure you got enough money at this point. Brother.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love the way that when Biden
Speaker 1: says something like that, which is just like totally nonsensical,
Speaker 1: everyone just pretends like, oh, yeah, of course, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: I totally understand what you're saying. Well, okay, so he says,
Speaker 1: I plan on running, but yeah, what is with the delay?
Speaker 1: That's where it all comes like nobody seems to understand.
Speaker 1: We have some reporting a little bit that gets into it,
Speaker 1: but it's just odd because it would get him an
Speaker 1: advantage to be in the race, so he could give
Speaker 1: the American people, I think, the clear contrast, and so
Speaker 1: he could continue to start raising money, which is what
Speaker 1: expected to be a very expensive presidential race. There doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to be any strategic benefit to running. Here's the
Speaker 1: other case that I could make. Trump is dominating the airwaves.
Speaker 1: Trump is dramatically unpopular right now. He's got like a
Speaker 1: twenty five percent favorability rating. Let him hang himself as
Speaker 1: the center of the stage of the news, and then
Speaker 1: I'll come in and sweep up, just like I did
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. That's not a bad case I guess
Speaker 1: I could make. But I still would want to be
Speaker 1: in the race and have some skin in the game. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know. The only way I can explain it
Speaker 1: is through his own personal attributes throughout his career of indecisiveness,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily about the decision of whether or not
Speaker 1: he wants to run again. I have always thought that
Speaker 1: he's going to run again. I've always thought that the
Speaker 1: idea of the Democratic Party was going to try to
Speaker 1: push him to the side was overblown because you know, listen,
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris is the heir apparent, and she is less popular,
Speaker 1: and they really have no way to get around, right,
Speaker 1: So I always thought they were going to move with
Speaker 1: Biden if he was at all capable of, like, you know,
Speaker 1: being propped up in a weekend at Bernie's kind of
Speaker 1: a way. He though, has always throughout his career, had
Speaker 1: trouble just making decisions about like where are you going
Speaker 1: to launch, where is your campaign going to be headquartered,
Speaker 1: who's going to be in charge, what kind of messaging
Speaker 1: are you going to roll out with, who are going
Speaker 1: to be here? Adme like these basic campaign decisions. He's
Speaker 1: both a micromanager and he's really indecisive, So then everyone
Speaker 1: just gets hamstrung. And in the same respect, I don't
Speaker 1: think they take seriously, you know, any sort of primary challenge,
Speaker 1: so they don't feel pressured to get in, and so
Speaker 1: they just let Biden like do his thing and not
Speaker 1: really come to any particular decision, And then the announcement
Speaker 1: date just keeps getting pushed and push and push and
Speaker 1: push and push. That's my best guess of what's going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very odd. I mean, they keep saying that they
Speaker 1: expect him to launch sometime soon. We have the Axios
Speaker 1: report we can reference here up on the screen, and
Speaker 1: they're saying, now, I believe it could come as late
Speaker 1: as July, or perhaps even the fall. I mean, the
Speaker 1: reason the fall seems very odd is that only puts
Speaker 1: you one year out from the actual twenty twenty four election.
Speaker 1: I mean, it says the announcement timeline could be affected
Speaker 1: by his advisor's desire to have strong initial fundraising numbers
Speaker 1: to try and avoid news reports about a lack of
Speaker 1: enthusiasm or vulnerability. Which, if that's what you're saying, that's
Speaker 1: already a vulnerability that you don't think you even raise
Speaker 1: enough money. It's a little bit odd. Yeah, that's true. Especially,
Speaker 1: I mean you're the sitting president. Yeah, you should be
Speaker 1: able to raise a ton of money. Trump raised until
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars or something crazy in the first
Speaker 1: six months of his campaign. I'm talking in my monologue
Speaker 1: about this sort of like desperate and pathetic social media
Speaker 1: influencer plan that they've been rolling out because it's always
Speaker 1: been the case Biden has had like zero organic excitement
Speaker 1: for him among young voters, grassroots or online. You know,
Speaker 1: it was very much last time around this suck it
Speaker 1: up and vote Joe kind of a even continues to
Speaker 1: be the case. He's even less popular now, certainly than
Speaker 1: he was at the time. His popularity appears to have
Speaker 1: dipped in the past several months for you know, I
Speaker 1: think a variety of reasons. But yeah, they're sort of
Speaker 1: desperately trying to float like access and little goodies to
Speaker 1: online social media influencers to try to get them to
Speaker 1: make the case for Joe onlines like good luck trying
Speaker 1: to get up that AstroTurf. We'll see if that's got
Speaker 1: I don't see it. Yeah, I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: fact though that they do have to delay it just
Speaker 1: shows you the fundamental strength of his campaign is just
Speaker 1: any contrast with Trump, because that's the only way he
Speaker 1: came in, And the weakness of the campaign is nobody
Speaker 1: really likes him. A lot of people would like to
Speaker 1: see somebody else. Most people think he's just way too old,
Speaker 1: and he's a begrudging kind of acceptance as a president,
Speaker 1: which is a very odd position to be in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very odd, very odd, And I think the total political
Speaker 1: landscape really lays bare a nation in difficult decline. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say terminal decline, but in quite decline,
Speaker 1: given that you have two likely candidates that not very
Speaker 1: many people actually want to see occupy the Oval office
Speaker 1: moving forward, and both both of them also are quite aged.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about we weren't able to get to
Speaker 1: this yesterday, but this is quite explosive the revelations that
Speaker 1: Pro Publica was able to unearth about Justice Thomas and
Speaker 1: the repeated luxury vacations that he has been gifted along
Speaker 1: with you know a lot of other perks and benefits
Speaker 1: from this Republican donor billionaire. It's going to put this
Speaker 1: first piece up on the screen. You can see this
Speaker 1: is the yacht that Thomas has been has been able
Speaker 1: to the luxury yacht that Thomas has been able to
Speaker 1: travel the world on that is owned by this billionaire.
Speaker 1: And on the other side is this painting of Thomas
Speaker 1: the billionaire. His name is Harlan Crowe. Leonard Leo actually,
Speaker 1: who's the head of the Federal Society, is also very
Speaker 1: prominent and prestigious and important in terms of conservative circles,
Speaker 1: especially influential with regard to the Supreme Court. There they
Speaker 1: are smoking their cigars and hanging out together at Crow's
Speaker 1: luxury retreat, getaway, etc. So let's go and put the
Speaker 1: actual pro publica report up on the screen. Let me
Speaker 1: give you some of the details here, because they are
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary. The headline is Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire.
Speaker 1: They start off with an anecdote about what happened in
Speaker 1: late June twenty nineteen, right after the Supreme Court released
Speaker 1: its final opinion of the term. He boarded a large
Speaker 1: private jet headed to Indonesia. He and his wife were
Speaker 1: going on vacation nine days of island hopping on that
Speaker 1: super yacht that we showed you before, and staff by
Speaker 1: a coterie of attendance, they say in a private chef. Now,
Speaker 1: if he had paid for this trip himself, it would
Speaker 1: have cost over a five hundred thousand dollars, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: He was brought along and all expenses paid by his
Speaker 1: buddy Harlan Crowe. Now this was far from the only
Speaker 1: trip that Harlan crow had gifted him. For more than
Speaker 1: two decades, they say, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually
Speaker 1: every single year with the Dallas businessman without disclosing them.
Speaker 1: He's a public servant who has a salary of two
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty five thousand dollars, but he's been able
Speaker 1: to vacation on Crow's superyacht around the globe. He flies
Speaker 1: seemingly regularly on Crow's private jet. He's gone with Crow
Speaker 1: to Bohemian Grove. That's that sort of infamous exclusive California
Speaker 1: All Mail Retreat can ask Alex Jones about what that is,
Speaker 1: and to Crow's sprawling ranch in East Texas. He typically
Speaker 1: spends about a week every single summer at Crow's private
Speaker 1: resort in the Adirondacks. And they have a bunch of
Speaker 1: photos in the report that shows the lavishness of the
Speaker 1: type of accommodations that Justice Crow. Justice Thomas has been
Speaker 1: provided here from Harlan Crow. They say that this has
Speaker 1: no precedent in the modern history of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And where this really gets into trouble, none of this
Speaker 1: has appeared on Thomas's financial disclosures. His failure to report
Speaker 1: any of this could run a foul of ethics laws.
Speaker 1: And reminder, the Supreme Court has very little in the
Speaker 1: way of ethics laws. Other federal courts have a code
Speaker 1: of conduct, they have specific guidance about how to deal
Speaker 1: with conflicts of interest. Supreme Court is largely up to
Speaker 1: them basically policing themselves, but there is a requirement that
Speaker 1: you disclose these sorts of gifts, and just this year
Speaker 1: it has been updated to clearly reflect the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, private jet trips, for instance, don't count as
Speaker 1: just sort of like normal hospitality of having a dinner
Speaker 1: at a friend's house or whatever that you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to report. So this is really something. And adding to
Speaker 1: the concerns of corruption here are is the fact that
Speaker 1: when Thomas is going and staying at this private resort,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other influential Republicans in floce
Speaker 1: uential corporate executives there. Recent guests included executives at Verizon,
Speaker 1: Price Waterhouse Cooper's, major Republican donors, one of the leaders
Speaker 1: of the American Enterprise Institute. So they're sort of gathering
Speaker 1: all of these conservatives together and you know, putting them
Speaker 1: up at this luxury private resort. And then Crow himself
Speaker 1: has been a significant donor on the Republican side. But
Speaker 1: even putting all of that aside, you know what we
Speaker 1: talk about with regard to corruption, whether it's politicians, whether
Speaker 1: it's the FED, whether it's judges, whoever it is. It's
Speaker 1: even just the appearance that there is a problem is
Speaker 1: a problem. And when you're talking about I mean, this
Speaker 1: dude has lavished millions of dollars in gifts on Thomas
Speaker 1: and his wife, there is a real issue there. Even
Speaker 1: if you could say, oh, he had he didn't influence
Speaker 1: them at all, He never talked about some reinport cases,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. The appearance of that level of
Speaker 1: direct corruption is incredibly damaging. Here's the thing. Look, if
Speaker 1: you want to be friends with the guys a citizen,
Speaker 1: nobody is stopping you. But if you want to be
Speaker 1: friends with the guy as a Supreme Court justice, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's basically complete. I've seen a lot of Republicans say
Speaker 1: this is like a witch hunt against Clarence Thomas. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: there's no real defense of this from a pure ethics
Speaker 1: point of view. At the end of the day, federal
Speaker 1: judges have immense power, specifically the Supreme Court, they have
Speaker 1: incredible amounts of power. You and I may know them,
Speaker 1: most people may know them as somebody involved in abortion
Speaker 1: or any of these other top line cases. Remember this,
Speaker 1: The vast majority of the cases that come before the
Speaker 1: Court have to do with administrative and business law commerce.
Speaker 1: They're the ones who set tremendous amounts of regulation with
Speaker 1: respect to how businesses get to conduct themselves, environmental protection taxes,
Speaker 1: how the administrative state is allowed to behave in Levy
Speaker 1: finds that is what really that they're you know, their
Speaker 1: bread and butter like day to day stuff that they
Speaker 1: actually do. We just don't pay as much attention to it. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's a single possible rational defense
Speaker 1: of that. Remember Bob, I mean Bob Menendez was indicted
Speaker 1: by the FEDS for accepting private jet travel and not
Speaker 1: disclosing it as some sort of inkind donation and possible
Speaker 1: even at parts of bribery. Like Look, if you're really
Speaker 1: friends with the guy fly commercial and meet him on
Speaker 1: the island, it's like you are very within your ability
Speaker 1: to do that and still hang out with your friend.
Speaker 1: There's a difference too, like, look, you know you can
Speaker 1: board the yacht for the day and have dinner or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then stay on land and pay for your own
Speaker 1: private accommodation. Look, any of us, any person who would
Speaker 1: be accepting gifts of this of this kind, would understand
Speaker 1: it as a gift and not just something that you're
Speaker 1: getting nothing in return for. Maybe that is maybe you
Speaker 1: can believe that they're twenty years of friendship in all
Speaker 1: that stance. I look, actually, I'm will say this. I
Speaker 1: think they probably are friends. I think they're ideologically about that.
Speaker 1: They probably do get along. Harlan Crowe is one of
Speaker 1: those cringe lords who funds people like Liz Cheney and
Speaker 1: Jonah Goldberg over the Dispatch. So his politics and Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas's very much kind of stand side by side based
Speaker 1: on from what I've seen about the guy, and many
Speaker 1: of these right wing billionaires consider themselves like Philosopher Kings,
Speaker 1: which is why they even so much some of the
Speaker 1: most repulsive people on the planet. I also do want
Speaker 1: to say is fits are horrible and he should be
Speaker 1: canceled for that alone, specifically the sandals. But a controversial
Speaker 1: oh god, I mean, I can't imagine, I mean a
Speaker 1: billion dollars in dressing like that. I guess when you're
Speaker 1: a billionaire and get away with it. Well, So a
Speaker 1: couple of things. I do think the fact that he
Speaker 1: is an activist in terms of conservative politics, I think
Speaker 1: that matters. But even if he wasn't. I think it's
Speaker 1: still a major issue, right, the fact that his French billion,
Speaker 1: like somebody, had nothing to do with it, right, it
Speaker 1: still would matter, YEA. The fact that he has business
Speaker 1: interests that can be directly impacted by what the Court does,
Speaker 1: that makes it all the worse. But even if he didn't, right,
Speaker 1: even if he was just like an air and it
Speaker 1: didn't really matter what happened to the court in terms
Speaker 1: of his fortune, this is still a massive issue. And
Speaker 1: just to give you a sense, so for other federal
Speaker 1: judges below the Supreme Court, their code of conduct requires
Speaker 1: them to avoid even the appearance of impropriety, so they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be held to a very high standard here.
Speaker 1: And then the other piece of this, which you know,
Speaker 1: it's just worth noting, apparently Harlan Crowe actually financed a
Speaker 1: documentary about Justice Thomas. In that documentary, Thomas is quoted
Speaker 1: as saying, I don't have any problem with going to Europe,
Speaker 1: but I prefer the United States, and I'm prefer seeing
Speaker 1: the regular parts of the United States. I prefer the
Speaker 1: RV parks, I prefer the Walmart parking lots, to the
Speaker 1: beaches and things like that. There's something normal to me
Speaker 1: about it. I come from regular stock, and I prefer that.
Speaker 1: I prefer being around that. Contrast that with the portrait
Speaker 1: that is painted here of a man who's flying on
Speaker 1: private jet to board a luxury super yacht for a
Speaker 1: well I one hundred thousand dollars trip to Indonesian. I
Speaker 1: think you get a little bit of a different picture
Speaker 1: than what he's trying to portray himself in in this
Speaker 1: Harlan Crowe finance document. If you like nice stuff, it's fun.
Speaker 1: Nobody begrudges anybody for wanting nice things. In fact, that's
Speaker 1: what a lot of people want money for, is to
Speaker 1: be more comfortable and to be able to participate in
Speaker 1: fun experiences. Nobody would begrudge you for that. I do
Speaker 1: have I actually have heard that he's kind of a
Speaker 1: biker guy and does enjoy some of those biker trips,
Speaker 1: likes what he really genuinely loves the Walmart parking life apparently,
Speaker 1: but his thing that doesn't exclude one from the other,
Speaker 1: right yet, And you know, I could see a world
Speaker 1: where you both like to do that, and you like
Speaker 1: to go on the yachts, where you just don't mention it. Look,
Speaker 1: there's no square in this one. I think it looks
Speaker 1: terrible and uh yeah, I mean, like I believe so
Speaker 1: strongly in the appearance of corruption being as bad as
Speaker 1: corruption itself. And for Thomas, this is a terrible look.
Speaker 1: It's always been a bad look to with how active
Speaker 1: his wife is in politics. And people are like, that's exist,
Speaker 1: you know, are you saying, I'm like, listen, they chose
Speaker 1: this life. Nobody asked you to be. You know, like,
Speaker 1: nobody was like you. Nobody said that you didn't have
Speaker 1: a choice in becoming the Supreme Court. You knew what
Speaker 1: you were signing up for. You don't get to be
Speaker 1: a private citizen if you want to be a private
Speaker 1: That's a funny thing. He probably could make a ton
Speaker 1: of money if he just retired and wrote some crappy
Speaker 1: book that Harlan Crow could bulk by, and then he
Speaker 1: can afford these own vacations. You know, this is about
Speaker 1: it for all these guys. This life is accessible to you.
Speaker 1: Just leave. But you know, for a lot of them,
Speaker 1: they want to have their cake and they want to eat. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll just say I hope you guys have seen through
Speaker 1: the body of our work that we very consistently apply
Speaker 1: these principles with eruption, whether it is you know, conservatives
Speaker 1: and liberals exactly. Yeah, So I mean this one, this
Speaker 1: is incredibly flagrant. And the fact that he didn't disclose
Speaker 1: it over this many years, I think shows you that
Speaker 1: he knows it's a problem about it. It's terrible. Look,
Speaker 1: no question, Okay, christ Take a look at well Biden,
Speaker 1: in his own bumbling ways, tumbled into making some major
Speaker 1: news with Al Roker on Easter Sunday. Take a listen,
Speaker 1: Are you saying that you would be taking part in
Speaker 1: our upcoming election of twenty four out of it all
Speaker 1: either your rolling and egg or you know, being the
Speaker 1: good you know, the guy who's pushed him out, help
Speaker 1: a brother out. Well, I've planned on running out, but
Speaker 1: we're not prepared to announce it yet. I plan on
Speaker 1: running al, but we are not prepared to announce it yet.
Speaker 1: So there you go. Any lingering suspensive or whether our
Speaker 1: octagenarian president was going to run for a second term
Speaker 1: should officially be put to bed. As we expected all along,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is running. Even if the Dems wanted to
Speaker 1: push him out, they can't get around the problem that
Speaker 1: the chosen heir apparent Kamala Harris is even less popular
Speaker 1: than the current White House document. But there are signs
Speaker 1: that well Biden is apparently eager to do the official
Speaker 1: Easter egg role for another six years, American people are
Speaker 1: somewhat less enthusiastic about the prospect of seeing him occupy
Speaker 1: the office of the President for another term. According to
Speaker 1: a brand new CNN pull, just thirty two percent of
Speaker 1: responding say that he deserves to be reelected. What's more,
Speaker 1: his performance is panned across a variety of personal characteristics.
Speaker 1: Sixty seven percent say that he does not have the
Speaker 1: stamina and sharpness to serve effectively, which I mean, given
Speaker 1: that Easter Egg roll clip, can you really blame them?
Speaker 1: Sixty five percent say he does not inspire confidence, fifty
Speaker 1: four percent say he's not honest and trustworthy, and fifty
Speaker 1: four percent also say he does not care about people
Speaker 1: like them. That last one, I would say is particularly devastating,
Speaker 1: giving that perceived empathy has always been one of Joe
Speaker 1: Biden's greatest political talents. These numbers are really bad, but
Speaker 1: among young people, the numbers are downright catastrophic. In that
Speaker 1: very same CNN poll, only twenty six percent of voters
Speaker 1: eighteen to thirty four believe Biden deserves to be reelected,
Speaker 1: as opposed to seventy two percent who do not. It's
Speaker 1: easy to take for granted young people's antipathy towards the
Speaker 1: current president, after all, he was not really their candidate
Speaker 1: in the Democratic primary. But Biden did win young voters
Speaker 1: by twenty six points over Trump, and early in his
Speaker 1: president young voters actually handed him very high approval ratings
Speaker 1: as he took action through the American Rescue Plan, including
Speaker 1: stimulus checks, and signed a bunch of executive orders in
Speaker 1: line with progressive priorities, things like addressing climate, lifting the
Speaker 1: minimum wage, etc. Young voters are supposed to be the
Speaker 1: bedrock of the Democratic base, and they're supposed to be
Speaker 1: the emerging coalition which, given time, will swamp the Republicans.
Speaker 1: And yet there are signs that the Biden team realizes
Speaker 1: they got a major problem with the youths, and they've
Speaker 1: cooked up a game plan to try to force Biden
Speaker 1: love on millennials in the newly politically powerful gen Z.
Speaker 1: The plan is both pathetic and gross. Here are the details,
Speaker 1: as reported by Axios. President Biden's not yet official bid
Speaker 1: for reelection will lean on hundreds of social media influencers
Speaker 1: who will tell Biden's record and soon may have their
Speaker 1: own briefing room at the White House. Axios has learned.
Speaker 1: So apparently, guys, the White House is working to do
Speaker 1: with influencers what has long been done with the mainstream press,
Speaker 1: which is to promise them access in exchange for favorable coverage.
Speaker 1: This is the corrupt heart of ACXI journalism and a
Speaker 1: key reason why the mainstream press cable news in particular,
Speaker 1: handles mainstream political figures with such kid gloves. They're more
Speaker 1: interested in maintaining their White House Christmas party invites and
Speaker 1: off the record briefings than they are with actually doing
Speaker 1: their job the way that they should. Well now, Biden
Speaker 1: is looking to AstroTurf some online enthusiasm by the same
Speaker 1: promise to influencers of goodies and proximity to power. According
Speaker 1: to Axios, hundreds of these so called influencers are already
Speaker 1: working directly with the White House. About two dozen were
Speaker 1: invited to a White House State of the Union Watch party.
Speaker 1: The White House is also moving to give them a
Speaker 1: dedicated press briefing space so that they can maintain more
Speaker 1: consistent communication name checked in Axios reporting as creators. The
Speaker 1: White House is working with our Heathercox Richardson, she's the
Speaker 1: wildly successful resistant substack author Vivian Too, a financial TikToker,
Speaker 1: and Harry Sisson, a young, dumb political TikToker. Here, presumably
Speaker 1: are some of the cringe dividends which are already being
Speaker 1: reaped from this program. Take a listen. See this is
Speaker 1: exactly what leadership looks like. Earlier today, President Biden that
Speaker 1: with a three Ocratic representatives in Tennessee that Republicans voted
Speaker 1: on expelling, He met with them, he thanked them for
Speaker 1: fighting for democracy, and he invited them to the White House. See,
Speaker 1: unlike Republicans, President Biden actually supports democracy, and he's not
Speaker 1: going to just sit by and watch Republicans do these
Speaker 1: crazy radical things like expelling Democrats for supporting gun control.
Speaker 1: Thank you to President Biden and these representatives for standing
Speaker 1: up for democracy and standing up for America. But judging
Speaker 1: from the comments section, not clear that systems Biden propaganda
Speaker 1: averts are really succeeding here. Some comments are supportive, for sure,
Speaker 1: Others say things like this, what a joke, That's what
Speaker 1: leadership looks like. Oh, brother. When kids love warmongers, how heartwarming.
Speaker 1: Let's not forget the Willow Project and the meat writing
Speaker 1: is crazy anyway, you get the point. I guess I've
Speaker 1: just come to expect that corporate media has co opted
Speaker 1: self interested and biased. But it's really kind of gross
Speaker 1: to see supposedly independent creators seduced by the explicit promises
Speaker 1: of access from a corporatis like Joe Biden. It's also
Speaker 1: a perfect window into the roots of media corruption. Many
Speaker 1: times there's not a direct exchange of cash, just a
Speaker 1: quid pro quo of powerclout, and relevance. A lot of
Speaker 1: people out there are willing to sell out for literally nothing.
Speaker 1: The good news is they might win clout with the
Speaker 1: current president, but they will lose it with their young
Speaker 1: audiences who are not remotely buying this spin. So, Sager,
Speaker 1: this is a big game plan to get the youths
Speaker 1: excited about Biden twenty twenty four. What do you think?
Speaker 1: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. All right, Sager,
Speaker 1: what are you looking at it? Well? I may have
Speaker 1: been mired in leaked Pentagon documents now for the last
Speaker 1: forty eight hours. But I couldn't let it pull me
Speaker 1: away from another vitally important story that we have been
Speaker 1: following from day one over here at breaking points, the
Speaker 1: lab leak hypothesis of COVID and the Pandora's box of
Speaker 1: inquiry it has opened, from exposing the media's cover up
Speaker 1: of Lableak to the corruption of doctor Fauci. There's always
Speaker 1: been a deeper point of Lableak. COVID was the tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg on lab safety, the complicity of the
Speaker 1: US government and the complicity of the US scientific establishment.
Speaker 1: A new investigation hints at just how deep the rabbit
Speaker 1: hole goes. They point, as just one example, to a
Speaker 1: lab in Thailand that was searching Southeast Asia for exotic viruses.
Speaker 1: The research was supported by the US government from twenty
Speaker 1: eleven onward and entailed Thai researchers going into remote caves
Speaker 1: and forests inhabited by millions of bats quote, including species
Speaker 1: known to carry diseases deadly to humans. They report quote.
Speaker 1: The scientists collected saliva, blood, and excrement from the wriggling
Speaker 1: razor fanged animals. Those samples were then driven to Bangkok.
Speaker 1: As any reasonable person may ask, why would anyone in
Speaker 1: their right minds do this? Because the goal was to
Speaker 1: quote identify unknown viruses that might someday threaten humans, and then,
Speaker 1: in a move that will shock absolutely nobody, researchers were
Speaker 1: bitten by bats and one accidentally stuck herself with a needle.
Speaker 1: They claim nothing ever happened as a result of those incidents,
Speaker 1: but the incident was recorded in twenty sixteen. Despite that,
Speaker 1: for five years, the US government still continued to fund
Speaker 1: that lab, which did not shut down until it voluntarily
Speaker 1: did in twenty twenty one. The report notes that on
Speaker 1: the very same campus as this Bangkok lab, they had
Speaker 1: another lab that was actually shut down in twenty eighteen
Speaker 1: because of quote mechanical failures, even though it was supposedly
Speaker 1: built to handle dangerous viruses. Once again, the most insane
Speaker 1: thing about this report is that this is just one example.
Speaker 1: They note that the number of labs handling dangerous pathogens
Speaker 1: funded by the US government is quote believed by experts
Speaker 1: to be in the thousands. In fact, the real interesting
Speaker 1: part of the report was detailing not only the existing
Speaker 1: insane projects that we continue to fund abroad, but the
Speaker 1: genesis of all of them. Before twenty years ago, we
Speaker 1: actually took studying dangerous pathoges and viruses very seriously. It
Speaker 1: was restricted almost entirely to bioweapons facilities like forty Trick
Speaker 1: in the United States or other nations that were studying them.
Speaker 1: No outside funding, very little private research involving universities and others.
Speaker 1: But in two thousand and one, the anthratc attacks changed everything.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden anthrax incidents coupled with post nine
Speaker 1: eleven hysteria, flushed billions of dollars into the Pentagon and
Speaker 1: National Institute of Health budgets to help prevent future bioweapons
Speaker 1: attacks and also to predict future pandemics and to try
Speaker 1: and stop them. In fact, Scientific American, which later went
Speaker 1: woke during the COVID pandemic in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: published a huge report looking at the forty one billion
Speaker 1: dollars in the seven years spending on biodefense In two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. They cite a Government Accountability Office report
Speaker 1: from two thousand and seven which quote said we are
Speaker 1: at greater risk today than ever before of a pandemic
Speaker 1: because quote the great increase in bio laboratories and the
Speaker 1: absence of oversight they receive. Richard Ebright, who today is
Speaker 1: a major critic of Fauci and a Lablique warrior for truth,
Speaker 1: was even quoted at the time warning quote, the Bush
Speaker 1: administration has driven a twenty to thirty fold increase in
Speaker 1: the number of institutions individuals with access to live virulent
Speaker 1: bioweapons agents from four hundred institutions and fifteen thousand people.
Speaker 1: To connect the dots further from then to now, the
Speaker 1: only person on records defending all the money spent on
Speaker 1: bioweapons safety was a protege of doctor Fauci, Michael Carilla,
Speaker 1: who was then the head of the NIAID Director of
Speaker 1: Extramural Research, who said quote, we're much better off having
Speaker 1: spent this money, pointing then to an anthrax vaccine and
Speaker 1: to a small smallpox vaccine for why the country is
Speaker 1: safer for having funded it. Even then, Fauci and his
Speaker 1: men were connected to protecting gain of function research dollars
Speaker 1: at all costs. Most of us never question any of
Speaker 1: this for two reasons. Number One, we had no idea
Speaker 1: any of it was going on. Two, we just assumed
Speaker 1: that these scientists knew what they were doing. But now
Speaker 1: we know that's just total bs, and we're looking back
Speaker 1: to see if all signs were there if we wanted
Speaker 1: to see them. Take Ebola our own Ryan Grimm has
Speaker 1: been doing a fantastic job of reporting in recent weeks.
Speaker 1: We're really supposed to believe an eighteen month old child
Speaker 1: was playing by himself in a cave and he happened
Speaker 1: to become patient zero for Ebola, or maybe it was
Speaker 1: a nearby research facility that is now confirmed to have
Speaker 1: been studying Ebola. In fact, new research shows in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one the same human adapted strain of ebola was
Speaker 1: previously seen in the twenty fourteen outbreak, with no new
Speaker 1: novel mutations over five years. Scientists want us to believe
Speaker 1: that the strain was frozen inside of a human patient
Speaker 1: somewhere in Sub Saharan Africa for five years and that's
Speaker 1: why it didn't change. Or maybe the nurse who got
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one strain happened to be working in
Speaker 1: the area of the twenty fourteen Ebola league where there
Speaker 1: was a lab. Much more at work is left to
Speaker 1: be done on Ebola, but it's not the only hint
Speaker 1: of a potential lab league sufferers of lime disease have
Speaker 1: long pointed out that one of the original outbreaks of
Speaker 1: lime disease in Lime, Connecticut in nineteen seventy five just
Speaker 1: happened to be the closest mainland town to Plum Island,
Speaker 1: the site of the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, which
Speaker 1: was a hotbed of US biological weapons research for the
Speaker 1: US military for decades and is known to have been
Speaker 1: studying at the time tickborn illnesses, specifically diseases like lime disease. Geography,
Speaker 1: of course, proves nothing. Critics of the lime leak hypothesis
Speaker 1: have long pointed to evidence that the bacteria itself has
Speaker 1: been present in and around the US before the outbreak.
Speaker 1: Sure possible question, though, is it a natural flare up
Speaker 1: of lime disease in this geographical town next to the lab,
Speaker 1: or was the illness being studied in the lab and
Speaker 1: then got released from the lab and that's what eventual
Speaker 1: nationwide outbreak. It's been forty years since that happened, and
Speaker 1: only in twenty nineteen did the House of Representatives even
Speaker 1: tried amountain effort to get to the bottom of it,
Speaker 1: despite vigorous objection from the scientific establishment. My question is simple.
Speaker 1: If it's wrong, why not try and find out at
Speaker 1: least rule it out, because how can you need look
Speaker 1: after the COVID nineteen pandemic, look at the fact that
Speaker 1: lime disease happened to blow up in the town next
Speaker 1: to the bioweapons lab studying things like lime disease, and
Speaker 1: just accept the government's words. Fact we need to take
Speaker 1: control of our scientific research dollars back. Like everything else
Speaker 1: sparked by the nine to eleven attacks, it is now
Speaker 1: cleared we created a monster bigger than anthrax and terrorism itself.
Speaker 1: We unwittingly built a multi billion dollar virus engineering empire
Speaker 1: that has already started one pandemic and it could start
Speaker 1: another very easily. The clock is ticking already, twenty seven
Speaker 1: new top level labs are under construction. FAUCI is retiring
Speaker 1: with no punishment, and the dollars are still flowing. If
Speaker 1: we don't stop it now, we may never get the
Speaker 1: chance ever again. Lime disease. That one's great. Yeah, I mean, wow,
Speaker 1: it's funny too, because and if you want to hear
Speaker 1: my reaction to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today
Speaker 1: at breakingpoints dot com. There are some POTENTI new developments
Speaker 1: in the war in Yemen, which the US has been
Speaker 1: complicit in by helping to arm Saudi Arabian We're joined
Speaker 1: now for an update on that by Thomas Sedowski. He
Speaker 1: is an actor, former actor at the Newsroom and also
Speaker 1: ambassador for the nonprofit organization War Child USA. Great to
Speaker 1: have you, Thomas. Good to you man, Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you guys very much for having me, and thank you
Speaker 1: for taking in some business. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, this
Speaker 1: has been classified as the greatest humanitarian disaster on the planet,
Speaker 1: something you've been calling attention to. And let's go and
Speaker 1: put this tear sheet up on the screen. There have
Speaker 1: been some developments that I'd love you to speak to.
Speaker 1: This is the headline from the Intercept R and Ryan Grimm.
Speaker 1: He writes, to help end the Yemen war, all China
Speaker 1: had to do was be reasonable. With Joe Biden nowhere
Speaker 1: to be found. China's diplomacy set the stage for Saudi
Speaker 1: concessions and cease fire talks. Are you hopeful here that
Speaker 1: this could actually bring a resolution and to this conflict?
Speaker 1: You know, I think that it's a really good first step.
Speaker 1: It's it's shameful frankly that we're delinquent in our in
Speaker 1: our humanitarian and diplomatic work over there, and it's it's
Speaker 1: concerning to me that the Chinese have sort of stepped
Speaker 1: in to fill that very huge void. I'm hopeful in
Speaker 1: the sense that, you know, the Saudis seemed to be
Speaker 1: ratcheting down the tension uh with the Houthi regime in
Speaker 1: the in the northern part of Yemen, which I was
Speaker 1: in not too long ago, which is in pretty rough shape.
Speaker 1: My concern, I think past that is that what happens
Speaker 1: after this. You know, there's still a civil war that
Speaker 1: is going on over there and one that has to
Speaker 1: be addressed, So there's a there's a lot of work
Speaker 1: still left to do, but this is a very good
Speaker 1: first step. My hope is that maybe this will rattle
Speaker 1: the cage enough of the United States to to sort
Speaker 1: of wake us up, get us off of our asses,
Speaker 1: and get over there and do some good. So how
Speaker 1: did you get involved in this organization? Tom? For people
Speaker 1: who maybe not know, just to lay out the humanitarian
Speaker 1: disaster of what is happening in Yemen has been happening
Speaker 1: now for quite some time. Yeah, I mean for the
Speaker 1: past eight years since the since the civil war started
Speaker 1: over there, and since the war started since the Saudi
Speaker 1: sort of got involved in since the international community, specifically
Speaker 1: in the West, led by the United States and joined
Speaker 1: by its allies in Canada and the UK Germany started
Speaker 1: supporting the Saudi and u a bombardment of northern Yemen,
Speaker 1: We've seen a situation develop over there that, I mean,
Speaker 1: it really staggers imagination. What was happening. The international community
Speaker 1: that had formed around that Saudi coalition was allowing and
Speaker 1: supporting that coalition to use famine as a weapon of war.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just that they were attacking population centers,
Speaker 1: coming very close to destroying you know, World Heritage sites
Speaker 1: and Sana and things like that. That they were also
Speaker 1: like bombing agricultural land, of water treatment facilities, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It became really really brutal. And when you spend time
Speaker 1: there in the country, it's an extraordinary country, its extraordinary people.
Speaker 1: The destruction is everywhere, particularly in the north. Just it's
Speaker 1: it's incalculable the amount of loss. So it's not hard
Speaker 1: to see where this you know, deprivation has come from. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you can see it up close. You can feel the
Speaker 1: levels of pain and suffering. You see the stunted growth
Speaker 1: of the children that come from you know, prolonged severe
Speaker 1: amount nutrition. You know, the sort of polite term that
Speaker 1: is being used these days is acute food insecurity, but
Speaker 1: all that means is starving to death. And you know,
Speaker 1: you're talking about millions of people. Sixteen I think sixteen
Speaker 1: point one million was the last number that I saw
Speaker 1: people in the CUE food insecurity, with just about two
Speaker 1: million in the famine state or thereabouts. That's really, really bad.
Speaker 1: I saw recently the United Nations had released some reports
Speaker 1: saying that things were getting better, and you know, on
Speaker 1: some sort of level, if you were reading the report, yeah,
Speaker 1: people were coming off that famine end of the role.
Speaker 1: The reason they were coming off the famine end of
Speaker 1: the role is that they were dying. A good way
Speaker 1: to take people off of those numbers is to just
Speaker 1: watch them perish, and it's really disturbing. Also, we're getting
Speaker 1: running ready to run into a situation here coming up
Speaker 1: in the warmer months where the mosquito season is getting
Speaker 1: ready to hit. One of the primary side effects of
Speaker 1: prolonged acute MAUNT nutrition is the collapse of your immune system.
Speaker 1: The mosquito population over there brings a lot of issues.
Speaker 1: So you're going to have a serious spike in dengey fever,
Speaker 1: You're going to have a serious spike and a lot
Speaker 1: of other insect bign diseases in sicknesses that are going
Speaker 1: to really ravage that population all over it. And the
Speaker 1: international community has failed yet again to meet its standard
Speaker 1: for what the UN is saying it needs in order
Speaker 1: to help the situation, help the situation by not allowing
Speaker 1: it to degrade further. They asked for four point three
Speaker 1: billion dollars. That's not to fix the situation, that's to
Speaker 1: keep it from degrading further. Four point three billion dollars.
Speaker 1: I just checked right before we came on air, and
Speaker 1: that is that fund is currently ten point five percent funded.
Speaker 1: Why do you think there has been such a reluctance
Speaker 1: to you know, offer up the minimal aid that would
Speaker 1: be required. Why do you think there's been such a
Speaker 1: reluctance on the US part to stop, you know, tazitly
Speaker 1: supporting Saudi's involvement in this conflict. And why do you
Speaker 1: think as this unfolds, there's so little interest from the
Speaker 1: news media in this just absolute crisis which we are
Speaker 1: complicit with. Yeah, great questions, Christal, I myself have not
Speaker 1: been able to wrap my brain around how and why
Speaker 1: you've allowed our fellow human beings to suffer on this level,
Speaker 1: not only allowed, but being complicit, like you said, been
Speaker 1: complicit in exaggerating that suffering and perpetuating that suffering. I
Speaker 1: think that, unfortunately, what ends up happening is, you know,
Speaker 1: in the twenty four hour news cycle, a lot of
Speaker 1: things come along, you know, the ridiculousness of what ends
Speaker 1: up ultimately getting covered and prioritized. You know, a conflict
Speaker 1: like this in a small country at the tail end
Speaker 1: of the Arabian Peninsula that hasn't historically had much of
Speaker 1: a much contact in any way, shape or form with
Speaker 1: the United States or with our population, it just gets
Speaker 1: completely not even thrown to the back pages. It just
Speaker 1: doesn't get included at all. So I think what you're
Speaker 1: seeing is a population, our population that doesn't know it
Speaker 1: just doesn't know. I was, you know, in DC after
Speaker 1: I got back from from Yemen, and I went down
Speaker 1: there to meet with some senators and members of the House,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's heartbreaking how much people in
Speaker 1: government know about what's going on over there, and how
Speaker 1: little they're doing about it. I had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: sit with a number of senators and they were very
Speaker 1: well informed. I was. I was very heartened to see
Speaker 1: that they were very well informed. But when I left
Speaker 1: those meetings, it just sort of dawned on me, like,
Speaker 1: if you know that much and you're doing so little,
Speaker 1: I don't know how we can pretend to have any
Speaker 1: kind of moral authority or any kind of moral position
Speaker 1: from which to lecture anybody in the world. It is
Speaker 1: a great point, really pretty extraordinary. The situation continues to
Speaker 1: get worse. In our solution to it seems to be
Speaker 1: to do less, you know, the Blinken announced Secretary Blinken
Speaker 1: announced the United States is going to be kicking in
Speaker 1: four hundred and forty four million dollars, I think to
Speaker 1: the UN Fund. And he said it, you know, with
Speaker 1: a great deal of you know, empathy and compassion and
Speaker 1: talking about the extraordinary suffering over there. What he didn't
Speaker 1: say is that what that offering of that money is
Speaker 1: twenty five percent less than what they gave last year,
Speaker 1: and very few people in the media said anything about it.
Speaker 1: It's shocking, and not only that when we're in DC.
Speaker 1: I had the opportunit to meet with some folks at USAID,
Speaker 1: which is an extraordinary organization. They do extraordinary work. They're
Speaker 1: talking about Congress cutting their funding to Yemen by upwards
Speaker 1: of thirty eight percent this year, with more cuts on
Speaker 1: the way next year. There is a piece that is coming,
Speaker 1: but what happens after that is entirely up to us.
Speaker 1: The suffering doesn't go away just because Saudi bombardment stops.
Speaker 1: In fact, it becomes a much more tenuous and a
Speaker 1: much more desperate situation because now that these goods and
Speaker 1: services are starting to flow more freely into the country,
Speaker 1: there needs to be oversight as to how it's going,
Speaker 1: where it's going. My fear is that, you know, big
Speaker 1: organizations like the UN will step in and say, well,
Speaker 1: what the funding is going to do now is going
Speaker 1: to do We're going to work on transition and rebuilding,
Speaker 1: and we can't move on to that point. Yet We're
Speaker 1: not there. We're still in a profoundly delicate situation around famine,
Speaker 1: children starving to death, one point one million mothers, breastfeeding,
Speaker 1: mothers in acute food insecurity. It is it's unconscionable that
Speaker 1: the United Nations fund is only ten percent funded that
Speaker 1: we are cutting funding meanwhile, And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into atrocity Olympics. Nobody wins,
Speaker 1: everybody loses. But how many billions of dollars in the
Speaker 1: last two years have we sent to the war in Ukraine?
Speaker 1: And you know, in Yemen we have perpetuated and participated
Speaker 1: in the suffering of these people who have done nothing
Speaker 1: to us. When I was when I was on the
Speaker 1: ground over there, I talked to folks and they kept
Speaker 1: on asking why us, what did we ever do to you?
Speaker 1: You know, they kept saying, you know that it wasn't
Speaker 1: Yemenis who flew the planes into the towers on nine
Speaker 1: to eleven, right, that they were you know that right?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm not here as a representative of my government.
Speaker 1: I'm not here as a representative of my people. I
Speaker 1: believe my people if they were to know what was
Speaker 1: happening over there and how we have participated and how
Speaker 1: we have turned our back on that degree of suffering
Speaker 1: of women and children would be living. And I wholeheartedly
Speaker 1: agree with that, because you see the way that you know,
Speaker 1: when the suffering of Ukrainians is put on TV America
Speaker 1: that we got to do, you know what we need
Speaker 1: to do. But when you have a media and a
Speaker 1: political class that you know completely invisibilizes not only what's
Speaker 1: going on here, but certainly any role that the US
Speaker 1: has in playing, then you know, people they're not putting
Speaker 1: Yemen flags out in their their yards, and there's no
Speaker 1: political will to do much of anything. It just gets
Speaker 1: completely ignored. So we're really grateful for the work that
Speaker 1: you're doing to try to highlight this crisis. Where can
Speaker 1: people find your organization? We're Child USA dot got it
Speaker 1: and those folks outside of the United States who are
Speaker 1: looking to help out. War Child Canada is sort of
Speaker 1: our interlocked system organization who leads the charge and they
Speaker 1: are really extraordinary as well. So I would, you know,
Speaker 1: ask folks to look at those two organizations, specifically USA
Speaker 1: and Great. We will have the links to those in
Speaker 1: the description of this video. Really appreciate it, man, Thank you, thanks,
Speaker 1: thank you for the time. It's our pleasure. Thank you
Speaker 1: guys so much for watching. It's been a while two
Speaker 1: days over here at breaking points. I just want to
Speaker 1: reiterate again thank you to all the premium subs who
Speaker 1: give us the confidence to do reporting around this stuff.
Speaker 1: Dealing with highly classed information, highly class information can be terrifying.
Speaker 1: Often at points you got to make sure all your
Speaker 1: legal basis and all of that is secure. And it
Speaker 1: should censorship ever come, not saying it has yet, but
Speaker 1: should it come, we know that you guys have our back,
Speaker 1: So we love you, We appreciate you of a great
Speaker 1: counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow and we'll see you all
Speaker 1: on Thursday. Love you guys, See you soon. H