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Speaker 1: Indeed, we do lots of things that are breaking this morning,
Speaker 1: including the second largest bank failure in history unfolding as
Speaker 1: we speak. We have all of those details for you.
Speaker 1: Also some bombshell Epstein revelations. Chomsky, I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on.
Speaker 4: There, buddy.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about all of that. And not to mention
Speaker 1: his meetings with a CIA chief. Not really that surprised
Speaker 1: about that one. We have an incredible video of a
Speaker 1: Biden voter really struggling to say exactly why she supports
Speaker 1: him outside of opposition to Trump. We have some pretty
Speaker 1: remarkable revelations, new revelations about Supreme Court corruption these involving
Speaker 1: Chief Justice John Roberts, and we have the best and
Speaker 1: worst for you from the White House Correspondence dinner. We
Speaker 1: all react to that, and actually I'm excited to talk
Speaker 1: to our guest today who has a report about very
Speaker 1: key meeting in the run up to nine to eleven
Speaker 1: and exactly whether or not the CIA may have had
Speaker 1: some involvement that they have been long rumored but downplayed, etc.
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Speaker 1: So the biggest news this morning, as I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: is the second largest bank failure in history. This is
Speaker 1: First Republic Bank. Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: They have now been seized by regulators and sold to
Speaker 1: JP Morgan Chase. As part of the deal, eighty four
Speaker 1: First Republic branches in eight states will reopen as JP
Speaker 1: Morgan branches on Monday. Let me read you some of
Speaker 1: the details here. This is courtesy of the New York Times.
Speaker 1: They say regulators seize control First Republic Bank and sold
Speaker 1: it to JP Morgan Chase on Monday, a dramatic move
Speaker 1: aimed at curbing a two month banking crisis that has
Speaker 1: rattled the financial system. First Republic, whose assets were battered
Speaker 1: by the rise in interest rates that fed rise in
Speaker 1: interest rates, had struggled to stay alive after two other
Speaker 1: lenders collapsed last month, spooking depositors and investors. First Republic
Speaker 1: was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation the
Speaker 1: FDIC and immediately sold to JP Morgan. The deal was
Speaker 1: announced hours before US markets are set to open, and
Speaker 1: after a scramble by officials over the weekend, later on Monday.
Speaker 4: So happening today.
Speaker 1: First Republic branches will be converted to JP Morgan branches.
Speaker 1: This is all happening like this. JP Morgan will quote
Speaker 1: assume all of the deposits and substantially all of the
Speaker 1: assets of First Republic Bank. The FDIC said in a
Speaker 1: statement they estimated the insurance fund would have to pay
Speaker 1: out about thirteen billion dollars to cover First Republic losses.
Speaker 1: Put the next piece up on the screen so we
Speaker 1: can give you some of the backstory of how we
Speaker 1: got here. So last week we learned that First Republic
Speaker 1: lost one hundred billion dollars in deposits during the banking panic,
Speaker 1: So this is basically in the wake of that Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley Bank collapse. People freaked out about First Republic Bank
Speaker 1: primarily because they shared a very similar wealthy Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: clientele with a lot of uninsured deposits, and most of
Speaker 1: what fled the bank during that period was those uninsured
Speaker 1: deposits over two hundred and fifty k.
Speaker 4: After people you know.
Speaker 1: Similar clients out watch Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, realized that
Speaker 1: there was a similar interest rate exposure at First Republic Bank,
Speaker 1: and those customers pulled about one hundred billion dollars in
Speaker 1: deposits out of First Republic Bank. The bank management has
Speaker 1: been trying to hold on. They had a huge infusion
Speaker 1: thirty billion dollar infusion from the other major banks in
Speaker 1: the first quarter, hoping that they could keep it together.
Speaker 4: But after that.
Speaker 1: Revelation of just how much of the deposits they had lost,
Speaker 1: the stock completely fell off a cliff.
Speaker 4: We have that for you as well.
Speaker 1: Can see what it looked like, lost over ninety percent
Speaker 1: of its value. Put this next piece up on the
Speaker 1: screen so you can see the chart. This is the
Speaker 1: year to date, so you think see things are going along, okay,
Speaker 1: And then where you see that initial plunge is right
Speaker 1: around the time that you know you've got the situation
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley Bank. And then in recent days when you
Speaker 1: had the revelations about how big the deposit losses, where
Speaker 1: you see another plunge. But obviously the stock had been
Speaker 1: getting hammered for some time, and over the weekend we
Speaker 1: kind of knew this was coming because the government had
Speaker 1: solicited bids from JP Morgan Chase and a number of
Speaker 1: other banks. It's also worth noting here, Sagar, that JP
Speaker 1: Morgan Chase, Now I mean this bank, it was already behemoth.
Speaker 1: It's going to be even more so, I was reading
Speaker 1: from the Financial Times. If they were to win, it
Speaker 1: would need the US government to actually provide an exception
Speaker 1: to a rule preventing any bank from making an acquisition
Speaker 1: providing it with more than ten percent of all US deposits.
Speaker 1: JP Morgan, the nation's largest bank, is already above that cap,
Speaker 1: so they would need another exception in order to do this,
Speaker 1: And of course it would put CEO Jamie Diamond at
Speaker 1: the center of a national banking crisis for the second time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for me.
Speaker 2: Take way is that two thousand and eight was all
Speaker 2: about making sure too big to fail never happened again.
Speaker 2: But the de facto policy of the US government and
Speaker 2: financial regulator since two thousand and eight has basically just
Speaker 2: been too enshrine too big to fail and make it
Speaker 2: so that these massive corporations, the JP Morgan's, the Wells,
Speaker 2: Farcos and those other financials, City Bank and others are
Speaker 2: so big that they basically become infused with the state,
Speaker 2: and it's like a quasi state policy. On top of that,
Speaker 2: you have several regional banks, people like Silicon Valley Bank,
Speaker 2: First Republic Bank, where it turns out, though that the
Speaker 2: regulators were totally asleep at the wheel with those and
Speaker 2: so what happens when they fail? They get rolled up
Speaker 2: into the behemos And now I mean.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a catastrophe.
Speaker 2: How can you have a guy like Jamie Diamond, and
Speaker 2: it's not even just about Jamie Diamond. How can you
Speaker 2: have a single financial institution be in charge of ten, fifteen,
Speaker 2: twenty percent almost of all of the posits in the
Speaker 2: entire nation. I mean, that person is frankly even more
Speaker 2: powerful in some ways in the US government in terms
Speaker 2: of what they can have.
Speaker 4: It may get overnight the way, of course, in the.
Speaker 2: History of that way, I mean an overnight change in
Speaker 2: their interest rates or savings policy or checking policy impacts
Speaker 2: tens of millions of Americans on an instantaneous basis, could
Speaker 2: literally change the entire US economy. They're not idiots, and
Speaker 2: they know that as well when you consider the top
Speaker 2: three banks in the entire country. So the problem has
Speaker 2: been is that we've moved to more corporatized banking, away
Speaker 2: from some of these smaller, smaller regional banks and credit
Speaker 2: unions which had ties into the community. They were willing,
Speaker 2: you know, evolved in such a way that they had
Speaker 2: they had a real relationship I think with many of
Speaker 2: their depositors, where we are now moving to an overall
Speaker 2: like corporate umbrella. And it's really troubling too, because how
Speaker 2: did this happen? Why is this the second largest bank
Speaker 2: you know, failure in the in history. It's not just
Speaker 2: about irresponsible behavior within a first Republic bank.
Speaker 3: It's also tail about interest rates.
Speaker 2: And that's an interesting question too, where the people who
Speaker 2: are interest rate proof are the too bait to fail institutions,
Speaker 2: and then the little guys like Silicon Valley. But I'm
Speaker 2: not justifying their behavior, but we should bear note that
Speaker 2: the reason that they failed is one because of the
Speaker 2: Federal Reserve.
Speaker 1: There's actually a new FED report looking into the failure
Speaker 1: of Silicon Valley Bank that we're going to get to
Speaker 1: in a moment that points the finger in all directions failure.
Speaker 1: You know, the rollback of regulations. FED regulators, especially the
Speaker 1: San Francisco FED folks. Silicon Valley Bank presidents sat on
Speaker 1: the board of by the way, their failure the bank's failure.
Speaker 1: So I'll get into those details in just a moment
Speaker 1: before I get into the bigger picture here. I think
Speaker 1: it is important to understand some of the specifics of
Speaker 1: what happened. As I said before, after Silicon Valley Bank fails,
Speaker 1: and you have the same very wealthy clientele with their
Speaker 1: asses out with huge uninsured deposits at this bank, they
Speaker 1: pull their deposits like crazy after Silicon Valley Bank fail.
Speaker 4: So that's one piece.
Speaker 1: The other part of this is this bank's special specialty
Speaker 1: was in very large low interest mortgages. So again that's
Speaker 1: where the huge interest rate risk comes in from them,
Speaker 1: and that's where the FED policy of continuously hiking rates,
Speaker 1: even in the wake of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse,
Speaker 1: ends up hammering to them to the point that their
Speaker 1: balance sheet is a disaster and a mess and there's
Speaker 1: no way that they can recover. So it's those two
Speaker 1: pieces coming together that led to this collapse. I also
Speaker 1: think it's important to note in terms of broader contagion,
Speaker 1: it's early, but it does look like Signature Bank, which
Speaker 1: was that crypto aligned bank that failed, Silicon Valley Bank,
Speaker 1: and First Republic Bank. It seems like these three were
Speaker 1: sort of outliers in terms of their exposure, in terms
Speaker 1: of their client tele in terms of their concentration in
Speaker 1: one industry, which created additional risks for them. It doesn't
Speaker 1: look like the rest of the banking sector is directly
Speaker 1: impacted by these particular failures. But again it's early, and
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you we also have some warnings
Speaker 1: from Charlie Munger about some other risks that may be
Speaker 1: going on for banks in terms of their balance sheets.
Speaker 1: I'm also taking a look at the markets right now.
Speaker 1: This is PERCNBC. Now futures are flat. There was I
Speaker 1: think sort of an expectation that this was probably going
Speaker 1: to happen, that was already sort of priced into the market,
Speaker 1: So not a huge market reaction here either. Now in
Speaker 1: terms of what this means for our banking sector, what
Speaker 1: it means for too big to fail, you know, Kyle
Speaker 1: said this to me, and I think it's true. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: whenever capitalism fails, socialism's there to like backstop.
Speaker 4: It and prop it up.
Speaker 1: But it's not just the big banks like JP Morgan
Speaker 1: Chase are too big to fail, with Silicon Valley Bank
Speaker 1: and Signature Bank. Now we de facto have a policy
Speaker 1: that all banks are effectively too big to fail. So
Speaker 1: you've got Jamie Diamond sitting now on top of his
Speaker 1: own massive, incredibly powerful empire, making tons of money himself,
Speaker 1: his executive shareholders, whatever, and with the implicit backing and
Speaker 1: guarantee of the US taxpayers. So it is the definition
Speaker 1: of privatize the profits and socialize the losses. And far
Speaker 1: from fixing this problem after two thousand and eight, we've
Speaker 1: actually just expanded the definition of too big to fail
Speaker 1: to be throughout the entire banking system.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Actually, if you even read diamond statement about why he
Speaker 2: bought First Republic quote, our government invited us and others
Speaker 2: to step up, and we did. Our financial strength and
Speaker 2: capabilities allow us to develop a bid to execute this transaction.
Speaker 2: And in fact, they are taking no losses on the transaction.
Speaker 2: It's all upside. It's basically just like what happened in
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight when Tim Geithner and the other
Speaker 2: regulators got involved called Jamie Diamond up and said, we
Speaker 2: will guarantee basically all of the downside and we will
Speaker 2: make sure that you have only upside. And how did
Speaker 2: that work out for them? It worked out incredibly well.
Speaker 2: So you know, it's a nice business that you can
Speaker 2: get into where you can make dumb decisions and look
Speaker 2: government policy.
Speaker 3: It impacted us our bottom.
Speaker 2: Line and impacted every small business in the entire country.
Speaker 2: Nobody's coming to save us if.
Speaker 3: Things go down.
Speaker 2: What we have to do is turn to the people
Speaker 2: who support us and you know, do better business and
Speaker 2: say a please, this is the thing that we're in
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 3: Have to make tough decisions.
Speaker 2: None of those appear to apply to the banking sector,
Speaker 2: and I think that's crazy. You know, why don't they
Speaker 2: just get to do business like everybody else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the FED context here is really important
Speaker 1: because there were specific risks with these banks, you know,
Speaker 1: who were irresponsible, made bad decisions, and you know, put
Speaker 1: themselves in a very precarious position, and they're pushed over
Speaker 1: the edge by a FED policy of hiking rates that
Speaker 1: hasn't even directly impacted what it is supposed to be impacting,
Speaker 1: which is.
Speaker 4: Bringing inflation down.
Speaker 1: Why because the FED policy, as we've discussed many times
Speaker 1: before but is always worth reiterating, this is designed to
Speaker 1: bring wages down and unemployment up, to kick people out
Speaker 1: of their jobs. But it actually doesn't get at one
Speaker 1: of the most key pieces of inflation, which is the
Speaker 1: way that corporations have used their market power in order
Speaker 1: to lift their prices and price gouge consumers. It deals
Speaker 1: nothing with the supply issues that we have, for example,
Speaker 1: in the housing market. In fact, it's creating some additional
Speaker 1: issues in the housing market because of the way more
Speaker 1: mortgage rates have gone out that's kind of created a
Speaker 1: freeze in the market that has kept prices from going
Speaker 1: down significantly. So that policy is underlying a lot of
Speaker 1: the turmoil and chaos that you're seeing in the economy
Speaker 1: right now, and specifically with these banks. As I mentioned before,
Speaker 1: let's get to this piece regarding Silicon Valley Bank. We
Speaker 1: just got a report from the FED of their own
Speaker 1: analysis of what exactly went wrong here, and lo and behold,
Speaker 1: they actually point some fingers at themselves and their own
Speaker 1: regulatory failure. Let's put this up on the screen, this
Speaker 1: next piece. So the US FED admits this from barons
Speaker 1: to failings in Silicon Valley Bank oversight. They called for
Speaker 1: greater banking oversite. They admitted some failures of their own
Speaker 1: in a widely anticipated report that was published Friday about
Speaker 1: the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. They write, following Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley Banks failure, we must strengthen the Federal Reserve supervision
Speaker 1: and regulation based on what we have learned. That was
Speaker 1: written by Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr.
Speaker 1: In a statement accompanying the report, they said Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: Banks management failed to adequately manage risk prior to the
Speaker 1: bank swift collapse, while FED supervisors failed to take forceful
Speaker 1: enough action after they had identified issues at the California
Speaker 1: high tech lender. So a few things that they point to.
Speaker 1: Number one, they point to what they describe as a
Speaker 1: culture under the previous FED chair for FED Vice Chair
Speaker 1: for bank supervision that did not force accountability even after
Speaker 1: they identify problems with this bank, because this is something
Speaker 1: we reported before that it's not like they didn't know
Speaker 1: that there were riskier They knew. They sent their little
Speaker 1: notices to the bank of like, hey guys, what, they
Speaker 1: didn't actually do anything and this was all the San
Speaker 1: Francisco FED.
Speaker 4: So there's that piece.
Speaker 1: They also point to those Trump era regulations which were
Speaker 1: rolled back so that in Silicon Valley Bank themselves went
Speaker 1: and lobbied for these regulations to be rolled back so
Speaker 1: that they would have less stringent standards and not have
Speaker 1: to face some of the stress tests that they would
Speaker 1: if they were a larger bank. So they point specific
Speaker 1: specifically to that. It's called tailoring the rules. The tailoring
Speaker 1: obviously completely failed. And then of course they point the
Speaker 1: finger rightly so at the management of Silicon Valley Bank,
Speaker 1: which was more interested in sort of like covering their
Speaker 1: ass and short term gain than really understanding the risks
Speaker 1: that were posed by the way that they had consolidated
Speaker 1: in this one industry and the way that they had
Speaker 1: this interest rate risk compounded on top of interest rate
Speaker 1: risk that made them very vulnerable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's important for everybody to read that
Speaker 2: report because what really comes out is one where the
Speaker 2: Federal Reserve is they're supposed to be the watchdogs, and
Speaker 2: their entire existence is around the independence set up by
Speaker 2: Congress outside of the democratic process and the theory that
Speaker 2: these experts can do a better job than democratic oversight.
Speaker 3: Well, how did it work out? It turns out they're
Speaker 3: not doing it.
Speaker 2: And this is again why I think that the preferential
Speaker 2: policy is to have as few banks as possible that
Speaker 2: have massive control because they're easier to regulate. Of course,
Speaker 2: you only have to deal with six guys. You're like, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: this is now the policies. Everybody's like, okay, they don't
Speaker 2: actually want to have smaller banks to be regulated because
Speaker 2: when they do, especially like Silicon Valley Bank, which is
Speaker 2: outside the norm, they operate very differently, mostly in time
Speaker 2: intertwined with the tech sector.
Speaker 3: They basically just said, you guys do whatever you want.
Speaker 3: You know, you're good.
Speaker 2: You guys are printing money the tech sector economy.
Speaker 3: You're very different than the rest of these banks.
Speaker 2: So we're just not going to even develop a new
Speaker 2: agency or whatever to try and understand your business. Model,
Speaker 2: and you know, fails overnight and everybody in the country's like, wait,
Speaker 2: what are we living in two thousand and eight, aen,
Speaker 2: what's happening? I mean, I don't think we should understand
Speaker 2: just because First Republic isn't you know, a contagion across
Speaker 2: a banking sector.
Speaker 3: This is still making a crazy story.
Speaker 2: You have two massive, no three actually bank failures in
Speaker 2: the span of three months. I mean that's actually more
Speaker 2: than what we had in some of the early periods
Speaker 2: of two thousand and eight. So yes, it may not
Speaker 2: impact you directly, but you know, we're setting the stage
Speaker 2: or something pretty crazy down the line. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: think people should get that.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: In terms of FED oversight, Stolar and others have pointed
Speaker 1: to a cultural shift that you know, this guy Michael
Speaker 1: Barry is pointing the blame at his predecessor, like, oh,
Speaker 1: that guy, he didn't do a great job here. I'm
Speaker 1: doing a much better job in the position. Maybe that's
Speaker 1: the case, but it, you know, doesn't really appear that
Speaker 1: way at this present moment. But there's been a longer
Speaker 1: term cultural shift that came from an assumption in the
Speaker 1: Green Span FED era that effectively these banks were now
Speaker 1: so big and they were so complicated that there was
Speaker 1: no way the government could really effectively understand them and
Speaker 1: effectively supervise them and effectively regulate them. So the shift
Speaker 1: in the culture happened really decades ago where there was
Speaker 1: a view of, you know what, since we can't really
Speaker 1: do this ourselves and really get our arms around this
Speaker 1: in the way that we used to be able to,
Speaker 1: we are going to outsource the job of supervision to
Speaker 1: the marketplace. Our focus is going to be on creating
Speaker 1: these sort of rules and guidelines that they had, these
Speaker 1: hoops that they have to jump through, and then this
Speaker 1: push towards just making things transparent so that the investors
Speaker 1: and the depositors and the customers so they can do
Speaker 1: their own due diligence and really understand and hold these
Speaker 1: banks to account. Obviously, I mean, it's like the ultimate
Speaker 1: neoliberal view of the world, right, like we'll just kick
Speaker 1: it to the markets and let them figure it out.
Speaker 1: That culture and that direction of banking supervision has obviously
Speaker 1: been an utter and complete failure, and it leads to
Speaker 1: situations like you have with Silicon Valley Bank, where the
Speaker 1: regulators were like, this is kind of an issue we're
Speaker 1: going to flag it for you, you know, we're going
Speaker 1: to tell you, like, maybe you should do something about this,
Speaker 1: but we're not actually going to take action because they
Speaker 1: no longer had that culture of feeling like this was
Speaker 1: really their responsibility to take on. So I think that's
Speaker 1: underlying all of this, which is a much bigger problem
Speaker 1: than these three banks. It's a much bigger problem than
Speaker 1: Randall Quarrels, the last you know, FED Vice chair for supervision.
Speaker 1: It's even a much bigger problem. Even though this was
Speaker 1: a major issue as well than the regulatory rollback that
Speaker 1: was in twenty eighteen, which I'll remind you, I mean,
Speaker 1: this was a Trump era initiative. It was supported by
Speaker 1: a number of Democratic senators, Mark Warner prominent among them,
Speaker 1: who still still was defending the rollback of these regulations
Speaker 1: that allowed Silicon Valley Bank and other banks to skate
Speaker 1: and not face the type of supervision that they should
Speaker 1: and scrutiny that they should.
Speaker 4: Have been under.
Speaker 1: And the explicit argument that was made by Silicon Valley
Speaker 1: Bank at the time was we're not systemically important, so
Speaker 1: you know, we're good, we're not risky, like we're fine anyway,
Speaker 1: don't worry about us, But even if we were to fail,
Speaker 1: it's no big deal.
Speaker 4: We're not systemically important.
Speaker 1: And of course we saw the way that that was
Speaker 1: clearly not the case, at least in terms of the
Speaker 1: way that our federal government reacted to their failure. I
Speaker 1: personally think it might have been fine if they let
Speaker 1: it be unwound in the you know, standard process. But
Speaker 1: they came in and basically transformed the entire banking system
Speaker 1: and put in place extraordinary measures, extraordinary programs in reaction
Speaker 1: to that bank failure, really exposing the lie that obviously,
Speaker 1: at least in terms of our federal government, the way
Speaker 1: they viewed this, they did view Silicon Valley Bank as
Speaker 1: systemically important, and you know, logic would dictate that they
Speaker 1: also view other medium range banks of that size in
Speaker 1: a similar manner. First Republic Bank is actually larger. I
Speaker 1: mean this is this is the second largest bank failure.
Speaker 1: So this is a huge bank failing. So nobody should
Speaker 1: just be like shrugging their shoulders about what any of
Speaker 1: this means.
Speaker 2: No, And Charlie Munger, you know, to your point, as
Speaker 2: you said, has also been raising some along put this
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. He says that the banks
Speaker 2: are quote full of bad commercial property loans, and that
Speaker 2: while it's not as bad as it was in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, quote, trouble happens to banking, just like
Speaker 2: trouble happens everywhere else. In the good times, you get
Speaker 2: into bad habits, and when bad habits come, they lose
Speaker 2: too much. So what he's basically speaking there is about
Speaker 2: those commercial property loans that they have on their books,
Speaker 2: not as penetrating as the aboriginal mortgage backed securities that
Speaker 2: were on the books in two thousand and eight. But
Speaker 2: that's directly how it relates to the interest rate rises,
Speaker 2: which is and plus COVID all the catastrophes happening in
Speaker 2: the commercial property sector.
Speaker 3: And you know, voila.
Speaker 2: People were over exposed to that get nuked and now
Speaker 2: they're just dead overnight. And we're supposed to have the
Speaker 2: Federal Reserve and other regulators make sure that this doesn't happen,
Speaker 2: and now we've had three in the last couple of months.
Speaker 1: Yeah, does anyone feel confident that there aren't other banks
Speaker 1: out there that are super exposed to this commercial real
Speaker 1: estate situation, for example, or some other interst rate risk
Speaker 1: that you know that they maybe are aware of, but
Speaker 1: didn't really push or do anything about. So we're going
Speaker 1: to find out in the coming days and weeks and
Speaker 1: months exactly how all of this unfolds. But already extraordinary
Speaker 1: situation with these three significant banks failing in succession in
Speaker 1: a very short period of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right, And I think the sad
Speaker 2: part is that from a rational actor point of view,
Speaker 2: on the individual level, you know, the thing you should
Speaker 2: do is you should move your money to the safest banks,
Speaker 2: which are.
Speaker 4: The big, onest margin.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, like again, on an individual level, that is
Speaker 2: probably the best thing to do. The whole point, though,
Speaker 2: is to try and make the incentives such that we
Speaker 2: don't want to do that. This was some of the
Speaker 2: worst nightmares of the original progressive era and the era
Speaker 2: of combination and of power. They understood what a completely
Speaker 2: oligarchic controlled banking sector would mean for the entire country,
Speaker 2: and there were a lot of farmers and others who
Speaker 2: have been foreclosed on and destroyed over the years who
Speaker 2: fought very hard against that. Unfortunately, probably going to have to
Speaker 2: learn that lesson all over again. Let's go to the
Speaker 2: next story here, which is very important and just stun
Speaker 2: and stunning, but also not stunning. It's just confirmation, I guess,
Speaker 2: of some many things that we already knew.
Speaker 3: Let's gohead and put it up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: The Wall Street Journal broke this massive story where they
Speaker 2: got access to Jeffrey Epstein's private calendar from twenty and fourteen,
Speaker 2: and that calendar alone, just from twenty fourteen shows some
Speaker 2: of the most extraordinary names in the United States, one
Speaker 2: of them being William Burns. You may not know who
Speaker 2: that is. It's the director of the CIA who apparently
Speaker 2: quote had three meetings scheduled with Jeffrey Epstein in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: I guess, to be fair to mister Burns, he was
Speaker 2: only then the mere Deputy Secretary of State, Secretary of
Speaker 2: State Department, with longtime ties to US intelligence. He actually
Speaker 2: confirmed the meeting that was shown on the Epstein calendar.
Speaker 2: One that happened here in Washington, another happened at his
Speaker 2: private residence in New York. His excuse was this, he
Speaker 2: had no idea who Jeffrey Epstein was. He knew that
Speaker 2: he was connected in the financial sector, and since that
Speaker 2: he was transitioning out of government, he thought it.
Speaker 3: Would be a good person to meet.
Speaker 2: Keep in mind, this is after Epstein has already been
Speaker 2: convicted in Florida and is just a registered sex offender.
Speaker 3: So it takes no more than a Google search.
Speaker 2: This is where do you really believe, in the era
Speaker 2: of Google, that a Deputy Secretary of State of the
Speaker 2: United States goes to New York City to a townhouse
Speaker 2: which is infamous for being a pedophile playground, to actually
Speaker 2: and does not google the person that he is going
Speaker 2: to have dinner with. I've never gotten to dinner with
Speaker 2: somebody who I didn't know. I recently went to a
Speaker 2: dinner party with a people who I didn't know, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I google.
Speaker 3: I was like, who are these people? You know?
Speaker 2: I don't even want to be in a sketchy situation.
Speaker 2: So that's what most normal people do. And this is
Speaker 2: I'm not the Deputy Secretary of State and the CIA
Speaker 2: CIA director. I was saying this in our editorial call.
Speaker 2: It almost just takes all.
Speaker 3: The mystery out of it.
Speaker 2: At this point, you're just like, yeah, all right, Like
Speaker 2: when you have the CIA director having multiple meetings of
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein in a single year. By the way, this
Speaker 2: is the only one year that we know about there
Speaker 2: could be many more meetings. These are the only ones
Speaker 2: they're copping to because happened to appear in his calendar.
Speaker 3: What else is left?
Speaker 2: I mean, this is it, people like, it's almost case
Speaker 2: closed in terms of what he did and how many
Speaker 2: more people are ensnared?
Speaker 3: Who knows? But this CIA director it's done. It's done.
Speaker 1: I mean his pattern, which comes out very much in
Speaker 1: this Wall Street Journal report, which, by the way, I
Speaker 1: am dying to know how they got this trove of documents,
Speaker 1: how they got their hands on.
Speaker 2: It came from the US Vision Islands because we're doing
Speaker 2: secon our second segment here in a bit, it almost
Speaker 2: certainly had to come from them because they have so
Speaker 2: much access to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean incredible information because this is all you know,
Speaker 1: we've heard all about like the Black Book and whatever like.
Speaker 1: These were all meetings that were nowhere to be found
Speaker 1: in that So this is new revelations about many people
Speaker 1: that you know, we had no idea were associated whatsoever
Speaker 1: with Jeffrey Epstein. And the picture that is painted by
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal here, which is one that we've
Speaker 1: seen painted before, is he uses his wealth and the
Speaker 1: connections that he's already established with wealthy and powerful people
Speaker 1: to bring more people in and get more meetings and
Speaker 1: sort of convince them, oh, I'm in the club and
Speaker 1: I can help you with whatever it is that you
Speaker 1: need help with.
Speaker 4: I'm there to like, you know, fixture.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're going to be transitioning to the private sector,
Speaker 1: No problem. I'm buddies with Bill Gates. I'll get you
Speaker 1: a gig with him. You could represent him. This is
Speaker 1: a specific example, by the way, I'm not making this
Speaker 1: up that comes out in these documents with regard to
Speaker 1: Catherine Rummler, who was a White House counsel under President
Speaker 1: Obama and had apparently dozens of meetings with Epstein in
Speaker 1: the years after her White House service and before she
Speaker 1: became a top lawyer at where Goldman Sachs Group in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. He also planned for her to join a
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen trip to Paris and a twenty seventeen visit
Speaker 1: to Epstein's private island in the Caribbean. Some of the
Speaker 1: other details here that come out are the way that
Speaker 1: he would cultivate these relationships, like making sure that they
Speaker 1: had that he knew what kind of food they liked,
Speaker 1: and if they're vegetarian, make sure they had that on hand.
Speaker 1: He made sure got apparently Catherine liked avocado sushi rules,
Speaker 1: so he'd make sure that those were ready for her.
Speaker 1: There were emails, internal emails that they got their hands on, too,
Speaker 1: where he and others are discussing whether because she's a woman,
Speaker 1: she might be uncomfortable with all of these young women
Speaker 1: being around, so do we need to make sure that
Speaker 1: they're not around when she's there, etc.
Speaker 4: So there was a very explicit.
Speaker 1: Project of Jeffrey Epstein to cultivate all of these relationships,
Speaker 1: find out who these people were, what their likes were,
Speaker 1: what their dislikes were, what they needed, And as Sager
Speaker 1: was saying, I mean, it makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: that someone who was involved with one or more intelligence agencies,
Speaker 1: that that sort of information might be very vulner very valuable,
Speaker 1: either to this country or potentially to another country like Israel,
Speaker 1: that he has a lot of connections to.
Speaker 2: This is my thing, you know, at a certain point,
Speaker 2: like let's just all just stop the farce. It's just
Speaker 2: so obvious, Like with the CIA director being met and
Speaker 2: Bill Gates and the nation's top bankers and JP Morgan,
Speaker 2: the level of special access I mean, yeah, look I
Speaker 2: get By the way, also, if you're out there the
Speaker 2: US Virgin Islands or anybody who's us access to the
Speaker 2: documents would love to see him.
Speaker 3: I would publish them straight up.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't protect the people at all, Not a single
Speaker 2: one of them is worth but for protecting miss you
Speaker 2: know Rumbler, the freaking White House Council. But also Non Chomsky,
Speaker 2: whose book that we have here on the set, A
Speaker 2: long time intellectual comes out looking real bad in this one.
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: Apparently had not only dinner with Jeffrey Epstein, but actually
Speaker 2: arranged a meeting with aud Barack, then the former Prime
Speaker 2: Minister of Israel, to discuss quote Israel's Palestinian Israel's policies
Speaker 2: with reguard to Palestinians. Mister Barrock will show you in
Speaker 2: a bit. Is long confirmed to have known Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker 2: The thing though about Chomsky is that he said quote
Speaker 2: when asked about his relationship, he said, first response is
Speaker 2: that it is none of your business or anyone's. Second
Speaker 2: is that I knew him and that we met occasionally.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: And then in March of twenty fifteen, Epstein not only
Speaker 2: scheduled a gathering with Noam Chomsky and Harvard University, but
Speaker 2: he also scheduled a flight for him. Epstein actually planned
Speaker 2: to fly with them to have dinner with Woody Allen
Speaker 2: and his wife Woody Allen.
Speaker 3: Huh. Interesting.
Speaker 2: I didn't know why him and Epstein would be friends,
Speaker 2: And Chomsky says, quote, if there was a flight, which
Speaker 2: I doubt it, it would have been from Boston to
Speaker 2: New York, only thirty minutes. I am unaware of the
Speaker 2: principle that requires that I inform you about an evening
Speaker 2: spent with.
Speaker 3: A great artist.
Speaker 2: So yeah, look, he's done some great work in his life,
Speaker 2: Noam Chomsky, but doth protest a bit too much?
Speaker 1: I lost me on this one. Yeah, lost me on
Speaker 1: this one. I mean, the son even that it's none
Speaker 1: of your business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's going on here?
Speaker 1: I think it's really important to reiterate too, that these
Speaker 1: were all meanings that occurred after Epstein was a known
Speaker 1: pedophile and sex on the sex offender of registry, So
Speaker 1: you know, anyone could claim innocence, And I had no
Speaker 1: idea before there was an actual.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and five even then, and doesn't take a genius.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean in another piece. So we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about you know, Chompsky, I mean, not Chomsky, Epstein's
Speaker 1: relationship with with the banking sector. And these executives are
Speaker 1: joking about his tastes in young girls.
Speaker 4: So it really reveals too.
Speaker 1: That they they knew what was going on, Like this
Speaker 1: wasn't a mystery. They were oh my gosh, I had
Speaker 1: no idea, Like please, they knew. But he was very
Speaker 1: effective at maintaining all of the trappings of elite high society.
Speaker 1: And I'm in the club and I'm one of you,
Speaker 1: and look if I can meet with Bill Gates, Like
Speaker 1: who are you to not meet with me? Like, obviously
Speaker 1: it's fine. And I'm giving all this money strategically or
Speaker 1: at least cultivating relationships with various high profile universities as
Speaker 1: also another way of sort of reputation laundering and getting
Speaker 1: him into these elite circles and elite rooms. And you know,
Speaker 1: he was able to get to a whole lot of people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really curious just in general about all of this,
Speaker 2: because I've heard this excuse too many times, you know,
Speaker 2: for for example, one of them is the president of
Speaker 2: Bard College, he says that he went to the room
Speaker 2: because he presented himself as a billionaire and to thank
Speaker 2: him for unsolicited donations. And they all have the same story.
Speaker 2: They said, I found him odd and arrogant. When I
Speaker 2: finally came to believe while we stopped contact with him,
Speaker 2: is that he was simply stringing us along. Everybody's like
Speaker 2: basically like, oh, I came to the conclusion that he
Speaker 2: was full of it. The only person who's count on
Speaker 2: that that I do believe is Eric Weinstein, who's talked
Speaker 2: a lot about the dinner party or lunch party or
Speaker 2: whatever that he had with.
Speaker 3: Epstein, and he came to believe. He's like, this person
Speaker 3: is a fault. He's a fake. He has no idea
Speaker 3: what he's talking about.
Speaker 2: Because Eric was, you know, know a lot about finding
Speaker 2: he worked in the finance sector for a long time,
Speaker 2: and he's like, I don't believe that you know anything
Speaker 2: about the purportant way in which you make your money.
Speaker 2: The rest of them, though, I'm not so sure. I'm
Speaker 2: willing to be so charitable here. They're like, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: why we stopped contact. Maybe stop contact a like you said,
Speaker 2: because he's not cutting your check or maybe he just
Speaker 2: remembered that this is a creepy pedophile or dealing with
Speaker 2: some of.
Speaker 4: These people like Bill Gates. Sorry to keep bringing them up,
Speaker 4: but he should.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's one of the richest men in the world.
Speaker 3: He hung out with this guy dozens of time.
Speaker 1: I was getting like marriage advice from apparently, you know,
Speaker 1: he really claimed like, oh, I barely knew him and
Speaker 1: wed and so also some of the representations about oh
Speaker 1: I totally cut off contact.
Speaker 4: Because I saw this guy was a creep and I
Speaker 4: saw it was a fake and a fraud and whatever.
Speaker 1: Some of those representations have also not been at least
Speaker 1: the complete picture or wholly accurate as to what the
Speaker 1: actual relationships were.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all of these people are liars.
Speaker 2: I mean, listen, if you met with him and you
Speaker 2: did so, if you met did so, you really didn't know,
Speaker 2: you need to come out and say so at this
Speaker 2: point because now you're just going to continue to look
Speaker 2: like a fool. And you know, also, look, CIA director,
Speaker 2: just let it sink in the director of the CIA,
Speaker 2: the former Ambassador to Russia, long time connected Intel official.
Speaker 2: Three meetings in a single year, and we're just supposed
Speaker 2: to believe it's totally chick. He had no Yeah, the
Speaker 2: CIA director had no idea he was having dinner with right, Well,
Speaker 2: this is bullshit.
Speaker 1: And the money has always been another piece too, because
Speaker 1: we know he had this benefactor in Les Wesner, who
Speaker 1: was head of the limited corporations like Limited Express all
Speaker 1: those companies. Okay, so we know he has that benefactor,
Speaker 1: But this is a man who presented himself as and
Speaker 1: lived as a billionaire private island, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the most expensive residences in all of Manhattan, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't add up where because he didn't actually
Speaker 1: really work like no one was. He didn't really have
Speaker 1: a lot of clients or anything like that to justify
Speaker 1: the life styleues able to lead. So it's like, okay, also,
Speaker 1: who was fully funding you? Where was this money really
Speaker 1: coming from? And you know, did what interest did that
Speaker 1: person have or that entity have in the information that
Speaker 1: you were gathering, Because that's what's really clear here. He
Speaker 1: spent his entire life until that life was no longer,
Speaker 1: you know, intact, gathering information about the likes, dislikes, and really,
Speaker 1: in many instances probably sexual proclivities of some of the
Speaker 1: world's most powerful, wealthy. Well connected individuals. I'll let you
Speaker 1: connect the dots as to what sort of entities might
Speaker 1: be interested in that type of information.
Speaker 2: You can also surmise that rich people don't have good
Speaker 2: taste a California role when you got that much money,
Speaker 2: put the put it up there on the screen that
Speaker 2: I referenced Ade Barack, the former Israeli PM, I've talked
Speaker 2: about this a decent amount before, who not only met
Speaker 2: with Epstein many times, almost funded one of his businesses,
Speaker 2: had entanglements, literally used to stay at his house, but
Speaker 2: says he never attended any of the sex parties. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, I'll leave that to you allegedly. All right,
Speaker 2: let's go to the next one and put it up
Speaker 2: there on the screen. This is very important. JP Morgan
Speaker 2: executives apparently joked about Jeffrey Epstein's behavior. This is from
Speaker 2: the lawsuit ongoing with the US Virgin Islands and Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Epstein's estate. This is part of why Crystal I think
Speaker 2: that the Wall Street Journal scoop likely came from the
Speaker 2: Virgin Islands because they have subpoena power and they have
Speaker 2: so much insight into what was going on behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: This one directly came out in a filing and shows
Speaker 2: you that JP Morgan Chase executives were joking allegedly behind
Speaker 2: the scenes about his interest in young girls while he
Speaker 2: was a client at JP Morgan and Chase, which directly
Speaker 2: contradicts the idea that which they said, we had.
Speaker 3: No idea who this guy was. We didn't know anything
Speaker 3: about him.
Speaker 2: He was, you know, a part of our wealth management division,
Speaker 2: and error, if we had known, we never would have
Speaker 2: done business. Well, as the Virgin Islands is a legend here,
Speaker 2: his behavior was so widely known that senior executives were
Speaker 2: literally talking about his interest in young girl behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: One of them is actually a woman in an email
Speaker 2: or an email to a woman, the contents of which
Speaker 2: some are redacted, in which it was directly to somebody
Speaker 2: who runs the asset and wealth management division, and they
Speaker 2: are literally making private jokes about this. We don't have
Speaker 2: the exact text, but you know, look again, how much
Speaker 2: more obvious do we have to get here? And also,
Speaker 2: you know, even within this, just the level of penetration
Speaker 2: that he has in some they're rich and powerful people here.
Speaker 2: Look at this crystal. The US Virgin Island is currently
Speaker 2: subpoenating Google founder co founder Sarah gay Brinn, Hiatt Hotels
Speaker 2: founder Thomas Pritzker, some of Hollywood's super agent, former Hollywood
Speaker 2: superagent Michael Ovitz, the real estate mogul Mortimer Zach. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are some of the richest and most powerful people
Speaker 2: in the world.
Speaker 3: The Google CEO. Come on, man, the Google CEO.
Speaker 1: And yeah, call back to our last segment about the
Speaker 1: bank collapse and being brought up by JP Morgan Chase.
Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond will in may be deposed despite attempts by
Speaker 1: the bank to prevent him from having to testify. The
Speaker 1: US Virgin Island's complaint contains an internal communication which references
Speaker 1: a Diamond review into the relationship with Epstein, of which
Speaker 1: the bank says it has no record. So they want
Speaker 1: to find out, you know, how high up did this go.
Speaker 1: What knowledge would Jamie Diamond have? What is this so
Speaker 1: called Diamond review that the bank is denying ever happened,
Speaker 1: or that they have no knowledge of, et cetera. So again,
Speaker 1: we were just discussing how Jamie Diamond with this massive
Speaker 1: bank which has had to receive an exception because they
Speaker 1: have so much of the deposits in the entire country.
Speaker 1: More than ten percent of all US deposits located now
Speaker 1: at this one bank, which has just become even larger
Speaker 1: with their takeover of First Republic Bank. Jamie Dimond, one
Speaker 1: of the most powerful people on the planet, also entangled
Speaker 1: in all of this.
Speaker 2: Of course he is, and he's going to get to
Speaker 2: posed and you know, is any of this stuff, is
Speaker 2: anything going to happen. This is why I always hear
Speaker 2: from people why they almost don't want to get interested,
Speaker 2: because I feel this way too. I've been doing this
Speaker 2: now for three years, how long we've been covering this story,
Speaker 2: and every time I'm like, man, this is crazy, and
Speaker 2: then nothing changes, nothing happens. We're covering this virgin Island
Speaker 2: suit for a long time. Virginia Goofrey. Apparently there's been
Speaker 2: some issues there, you know, behind the scenes too, in
Speaker 2: terms of some of the things that were happening in
Speaker 2: that case. Now, you know, in reference to this one,
Speaker 2: the dock the CI director.
Speaker 3: But you know, here's what I would wish. I hope
Speaker 3: that somebody asked.
Speaker 2: The White House Press secretary and just be like, hey,
Speaker 2: why did your nominee have a dinner with the with
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Epstein on three separate occasions. Do you have any
Speaker 2: comment on that for the CIA director? Do you think
Speaker 2: that that looks good or is acceptable conduct for the
Speaker 2: Biden administration. But this is the other problem with the
Speaker 2: press is we learned all about that ABC News report.
Speaker 2: Even the press themselves are compromised in many ways whenever
Speaker 2: it comes to the story.
Speaker 1: So yeah, because because the touch is so I mean,
Speaker 1: this was how we protected himself for so long, because
Speaker 1: he has so many rich, famous, powerful people who are
Speaker 1: connected and snared in ways that are very embarrassing for them.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there's a you know.
Speaker 1: All all elite effort to make sure that none of
Speaker 1: this ever comes out. And kudos to the US Virgin
Speaker 1: Islands for pushing some of this forward.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean they're the ones who got the
Speaker 2: most screwed really out of this and had some of
Speaker 2: the most heinous acts. Yeah, most likely perpetrated on their soil.
Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's talk a little bit about Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: We always are just on the look for real Biden
Speaker 2: voters who are out there allegedly who are excited, and
Speaker 2: we'll get to the alleged excitement first. But we wanted
Speaker 2: to start with an amazing clip that came from ABC
Speaker 2: News is Martha Radditz where she was doing some Man
Speaker 2: on the Street interviews. They find a woman who is
Speaker 2: a Biden voter, a Biden supporter, and so they go
Speaker 2: up to her and on camera, I mean presumably she
Speaker 2: had some time Crystal to at least come up with
Speaker 2: the response, and they say, why do you support Joe Biden?
Speaker 2: And the response is everything, Let's take a listen.
Speaker 3: What do you like about Joe Briden? That he's not Trump?
Speaker 4: That is the whole election, right, That's it. That is
Speaker 4: the whole election right there.
Speaker 3: That he's not Trump. Brutal, it's brutal because it just
Speaker 3: it's perfect. It's just exactly.
Speaker 2: That's why they you know, that's why he has any
Speaker 2: support whatsoever, because they hate Trump. They have no positive
Speaker 2: things they could say about the guy. They don't like
Speaker 2: the guy. Everybody thinks he's way too old to be president.
Speaker 2: I'll give him credit, you know, we'll talk about the
Speaker 2: White House correspondent and it just seemed generally with it.
Speaker 2: But what's one thing that everybody who's enver interacted with
Speaker 2: Geriatrix knows they have the good days and they have
Speaker 2: the bad days, the bad days on just what happened
Speaker 2: to have a good night. I think that's great, but
Speaker 2: it literally, you know, the White House is putting out
Speaker 2: or the analysis came out crystal that he only does
Speaker 2: events from ten am to four pm, that his staff
Speaker 2: will not schedule him outside.
Speaker 1: There was so much cope about that too, people like
Speaker 1: what's wrong with just working in normal business hours.
Speaker 3: It's like, well, you're the president, maybe that's what's wrong
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, especially when you put that together with
Speaker 1: does not do press conferences, does not do a fewer
Speaker 1: interviews than any other you know, sitting president in modern history,
Speaker 1: hasn't sapt with any of the major newspayers Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 1: in New York Times or Washington Post. Put all of that
Speaker 1: together and you're like, isn't going to do debates and
Speaker 1: isn't has no as announces reelected and has to plan
Speaker 1: any rallies or public appearances to speak of. You start
Speaker 1: to wonder, like, okay, you don't start to wonder. You
Speaker 1: start to have your fears confirmed that maybe he is
Speaker 1: not up for another four years.
Speaker 4: But you know, the flip side of that is this.
Speaker 1: Person who can't find a single positive thing to say
Speaker 1: about the man that she's going to vote for, is
Speaker 1: still going to vote for, and that like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to. I don't want people to get the mistaken
Speaker 1: impression that I think Biden will lose to Trump. I
Speaker 1: think it's a jump ball. I think it's possible that
Speaker 1: he loses. I also think it's possible that their theory
Speaker 1: of the case that people are so sick of Trump
Speaker 1: and his insanities and his legal woes and whatever is
Speaker 1: going on over there are enough where they're like, I'm
Speaker 1: not excited about this one over here, But what other
Speaker 1: choice do I really have?
Speaker 4: I mean, this is the thing that I keep coming
Speaker 4: back to.
Speaker 1: You have two men in Donald Trump and Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: who are likely to be their party's nominees, who both
Speaker 1: of whom have said they don't intend to debate, and
Speaker 1: they don't intend to earn the nomination, bottom line, or
Speaker 1: give voters a real choice in the matter. That's number
Speaker 1: one and number two. Overwhelming majorities of the country are like,
Speaker 1: we don't want these guys. Seventy percent of the country
Speaker 1: says no to Joe Biden. We wish we had another alternative.
Speaker 1: Sixty percent of the country says the same thing about
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. And yet that's where we're ending up. So
Speaker 1: even though this is less than an inspiring case to
Speaker 1: be made here for Joe Biden, it might be the
Speaker 1: case that wins the day it was last time it
Speaker 1: was last time.
Speaker 3: I'm denying it. There's no denying it whatsoever.
Speaker 2: And just so people know where some of the excitement
Speaker 2: is coming about, never Joe Biden.
Speaker 4: It turns out very genuine and author very.
Speaker 2: Genuine, authentic and totally organic and not paid for propagandists
Speaker 2: that we're seeing for gen Z Biden people on TikTok.
Speaker 2: One of them is named Harry Sisson. We'll tell you
Speaker 2: a little bit about who's paying him. But here's what
Speaker 2: some Biden propaganda looks like for the u that are
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 3: Let's take a lesson.
Speaker 7: So a new NBC News poll shows that seventy percent
Speaker 7: of all Americans, including fifty one percent of Democrats, don't
Speaker 7: want President Biden to run again. It goes like this,
Speaker 7: right now, there's three Democrats in the mix. Mary on Williamson,
Speaker 7: who's seen is very out there and fundamentally unserious. There's
Speaker 7: reports that she abuses her staff, and I know she
Speaker 7: says she wants free healthcare, free college for all, but
Speaker 7: when you ask her how she's gonna achieve, this is
Speaker 7: radio silence. Then we have a Kennedy in the mix
Speaker 7: who's backed by a bunch of Trumpers. He's a conspiracy
Speaker 7: theorist and he's anti vaxed. So no Marion Williamson, no Kennedy.
Speaker 7: And lastly, we have President Biden, who has been quite
Speaker 7: productive and delivered on a lot of promises, although not
Speaker 7: enough Americans know about it. I get age as a factor,
Speaker 7: but right now, as it stands, the clear choice for
Speaker 7: president of United States in twenty twenty four is Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: Apologies, that was actually Chris Mowi. He is another Biden
Speaker 2: paid influencer who often does collaboration content with Harry Sisson.
Speaker 2: Both of them, though Crystal, were identified in April of ninth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, as quote unpaid independent content creer that
Speaker 2: have been given access to the Biden White House. Now
Speaker 2: that's not exactly true, is it, Because while I guess yes,
Speaker 2: the White House is not paying them, somebody is paying
Speaker 2: them to create this content.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they apparently work for this palette management or
Speaker 1: something like that, which gets payments from the DNC.
Speaker 4: I'll let you put the got you get there? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Got it.
Speaker 1: Now they deny they're paid, et cetera, et cetera, but look,
Speaker 1: if you look at their content, it's hard to hard
Speaker 1: to mistake it for me authentic.
Speaker 2: If you're not getting paid, how does that work? You
Speaker 2: just handing out emails for free? Right?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: Come on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's funny though, because this is part of something we
Speaker 1: reported on before, which is this whole like digital influencer
Speaker 1: strategy that the Biden campaign is rolling out because they
Speaker 1: know they have no organic enthusiasm online.
Speaker 4: I mean, they have.
Speaker 1: Lots of people who will like yell at you if
Speaker 1: you say something against them that like you're helping fascism,
Speaker 1: But in terms of actual genuine grassroots enthusiasm for Biden,
Speaker 1: certainly not, and certainly not on TikTok either. I was
Speaker 1: looking at the comments section of that one that we played,
Speaker 1: and like, overwhelmingly in the comments they're like, no, Marianne
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I mean, Marianne on TikTok thing is
Speaker 1: genuine phenomena, as Ryan Grim was reporting, and that is
Speaker 1: very much reflected in the comment section here. I also
Speaker 1: don't think it's an accident that all of this starts
Speaker 1: to really ramp up after some of the reporting came
Speaker 1: out about how she was finding a real audience on
Speaker 1: TikTok and like genuine, authentic gen Z support. So they're
Speaker 1: trying to they're trying to buy some some cool here,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people are really falling for.
Speaker 4: A soccer Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think you're right, Crystal.
Speaker 2: I mean really, what it comes down to is that
Speaker 2: these kids, you know, all this stuff, are trying to
Speaker 2: AstroTurf a fake narrative into existence. I think it's like
Speaker 2: you said at the top, with that woe. But I
Speaker 2: don't want to make fun of that woman. She may
Speaker 2: not have known when she was getting into because I
Speaker 2: thought I.
Speaker 3: Found a lot of people vote that way.
Speaker 4: I found it very honest, to be honest, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I please don't go after it. But you know why
Speaker 3: a lot of people vote that way.
Speaker 2: She just had the balls to say it on camera,
Speaker 2: and like that's why a lot of you people are
Speaker 2: you know, I've met a lot of Wow. I don't
Speaker 2: like the tweets, but you know, like this is better
Speaker 2: than that guy.
Speaker 3: It's like that's the same version I hear it all.
Speaker 2: The time behind the scenes, and I think we'd be
Speaker 2: better off if we were more honest about that. Now,
Speaker 2: do I think politics should work that way? No, But
Speaker 2: that's not.
Speaker 4: The voter's fault.
Speaker 1: That's the fault of these like you know, it's a
Speaker 1: synachronistic parties and yeah, a system that's set up that
Speaker 1: doesn't let in any third parties. I mean, the first
Speaker 1: past the post system and lack of ranked choice voting
Speaker 1: that creates this dynamic where you're stuck with these two
Speaker 1: guys that, yeah, most people don't want and aren't excited
Speaker 1: about it or actively hate, and yet you're.
Speaker 4: Left with these two choices.
Speaker 1: So this voter who's like, man, I don't really can't
Speaker 1: really come up with anything that I affirmatively like about Biden,
Speaker 1: but I'm definitely with him just because he's not Trump.
Speaker 1: That's incredibly reflective of the electorate. And so no, I
Speaker 1: don't like, I don't judge her for that whatsoever, because
Speaker 1: what other choice does she have.
Speaker 4: This is the binary that's created exactly.
Speaker 3: It's not her fault.
Speaker 2: It's really sad, you know that things have ended up
Speaker 2: this way, but you know, maybe we'll eventually get out
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: Let's go to the next one. Here, just a fun clip.
Speaker 2: Friend Andrew Schultz on his podcast Brilliant Idiots with Charlemagne,
Speaker 2: had a great rant Charlemagne did about the DNC about
Speaker 2: the lack of democratic debates. I think that very much
Speaker 2: strikes to you why people are frustrated with system.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 6: What about you, Chris, you like you like Biden? You're
Speaker 6: voting for Biden again.
Speaker 4: I think we could use a fresh news.
Speaker 3: That's why it's whacked that the DNC won't let nobody
Speaker 3: probab They won't do no primaries next year. Man, do
Speaker 3: a fucking primary debates.
Speaker 8: Put Joe Biden up on that stage with Bobby Kennedy,
Speaker 8: who's challenging him in Mary Anne Williamson.
Speaker 9: And whoever steps up to the plate, and let's have
Speaker 9: a fucking discussion.
Speaker 3: Yo. I mean, demand is right.
Speaker 2: He has an amazing ability to kind of cut through
Speaker 2: the bs. Like with remember when Kamala Harris was pretending
Speaker 2: not to be able to hear him that He's like,
Speaker 2: she's pretending not to hear me.
Speaker 1: Well, he's the one who got the you ain't black
Speaker 1: Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Out of Joe Biden yeah.
Speaker 1: He's barely done an interview since then.
Speaker 2: He had these moments or whenever he went after Elizabeth
Speaker 2: Warren and yeah, I mean props to him.
Speaker 4: Yeah he was. That's the right when he was like,
Speaker 4: what are you the new Rachel.
Speaker 2: Dolt, Like are you and she was like oh, she
Speaker 2: was like a completely short circuitag.
Speaker 1: Right, because he doesn't care if he talks to these
Speaker 1: people again.
Speaker 2: But that's why they come back, because the show is huge,
Speaker 2: not only Brilliant Idiots but the Breakfast Club. But I
Speaker 2: think what he's getting at too is a deep frustration
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people about the lack
Speaker 2: of openness in the process. By the way, everyone, we
Speaker 2: are working on getting Robert Kennedy here on the show.
Speaker 2: We've been in contact with the team will appear on
Speaker 2: breaking points in the very near future, either remote or
Speaker 2: hopefully in person, which is what we are working on.
Speaker 2: So if you see a little bit of a delay,
Speaker 2: its because we would very much like to have him
Speaker 2: here at the desk in the show and talk for
Speaker 2: a little while as opposed to zoom, even though we
Speaker 2: might have to wait a couple more days.
Speaker 3: Just keep that in mind.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next one and put this up
Speaker 2: there on the screen, which is a piece about black
Speaker 2: voters and their frustration not just with the Biden administration,
Speaker 2: but with the Democratic Party whenever they are remaining the
Speaker 2: most loyal voters to the Democratic Party. Let's remember that
Speaker 2: Joe Biden would be dead without elderly black voters in
Speaker 2: the Democratic base.
Speaker 3: There's just no way around it.
Speaker 2: They saved him in the South Carolina primary, and in
Speaker 2: conjunction with Jim Clyburn, coming really at the behest of Clyburn,
Speaker 2: who said we need to come out and save this guy,
Speaker 2: and then in conjunction with Super Tuesday just swept the
Speaker 2: entire Democratic nomination in an overnight success on top of
Speaker 2: what was happening with COVID.
Speaker 3: But Chrissell.
Speaker 2: What comes out in this piece from the New York
Speaker 2: Times with interviews with you know, not just elderly black voters,
Speaker 2: somewhere like middle class, younger voters, is they're not too happy.
Speaker 2: They say, quote Biden is pandering to us whenever it
Speaker 2: is time to vote.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They quote a man named Travis Williams, who is a
Speaker 1: Democratic organizer, not just like random person, someone who is
Speaker 1: actively invested in the Democratic Party and has put at
Speaker 1: least like manpower into this party's success previously, and he says,
Speaker 1: folks are just tired of being tired. They're just sick
Speaker 1: and tired of being tired and disappointed whenever our issues
Speaker 1: are never addressed. So Biden has really staked his reelect
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways on South Carolina by pushing
Speaker 1: them to the front of the line and pushing New
Speaker 1: Hampshire trying to out of the way. Which I'm doing
Speaker 1: my whole monologue on what a disaster he's created for
Speaker 1: himself there and what the repercussions might end up being.
Speaker 1: But the very voters that he considers to be his
Speaker 1: core base that he is depending on to hand him
Speaker 1: the nomination again and to vote for him and DROs
Speaker 1: to get him back in as president of the United States,
Speaker 1: they're not impressed. They are not impressed. There's another piece
Speaker 1: in the New York Times this morning about interviewing independent
Speaker 1: voters in Arizona, Key swing state, and they also were
Speaker 1: these were people who had voted for Joe Biden before,
Speaker 1: and they were similarly not impressed, and some of them
Speaker 1: actively saying, you know what, I'm going to consider both
Speaker 1: candidates a lot more. This time around. Some of the disappointment, too,
Speaker 1: came from people who had a lot of student loan
Speaker 1: debt that felt like, you know, there were promises made
Speaker 1: there that didn't come to fruition.
Speaker 4: People who felt like his pitch had been to.
Speaker 1: The American people, I'm going to bring the country together,
Speaker 1: and they feel like were more divided, more polarized. That ever,
Speaker 1: people who feel like they've really been crunched by the
Speaker 1: economy and by inflation.
Speaker 4: So, you know, there's a.
Speaker 1: Lot of disappointment, there's a lot of feeling that there
Speaker 1: were broken promises, and probably overwhelmingly there's a lot of
Speaker 1: concern about his age and whether he can actually handle
Speaker 1: the job for another four years. But again, on the
Speaker 1: other side, to go back to that original voter, you
Speaker 1: also have a lot of people, and these were the
Speaker 1: people who were determinative last time around, who don't like
Speaker 1: either candidate but ended up voting for Joe Biden. Now
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, that group that didn't like Trump and
Speaker 1: didn't like Hillary Clinton, at the end they moved to Trump.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like the core swing vote at this
Speaker 1: point is people who are disgusted with everyone. Do they
Speaker 1: show up and vote and who do they end up
Speaker 1: voting for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. Now.
Speaker 2: One of the more fascinating things they point to is
Speaker 2: that drop off in black voter engagement from twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: which could manifest and lack of numbers. But I just
Speaker 2: think Trump such a polarizing figure. You know, twenty twenty
Speaker 2: twenty was the ultimate anti election where millions more people
Speaker 2: came out to vote against something rather than for something.
Speaker 2: Not a lot of evidence to say that any of
Speaker 2: that will change, but it puts you in a precarious
Speaker 2: situation where people hate something even marginally less than you
Speaker 2: are going to get marginally less votes, which could end
Speaker 2: up mattering. Let's say in an election where you only
Speaker 2: won by thirty thousand votes. You know, just.
Speaker 3: Throwing that out there, Yeah, of how it might manifest.
Speaker 1: All right, let's turn to the very latest revelations which
Speaker 1: are getting hard to keep track of around Supreme Court corruption.
Speaker 4: Put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So this one involves Chief Justice on Roberts, may provide
Speaker 1: some insight into why he has refused to come and
Speaker 1: testify to lawmakers about corruption in the Supreme Court. He
Speaker 1: is married to a woman named Jane Roberts, who has
Speaker 1: made ten point three million dollars in commissions from elite
Speaker 1: law firms. By placing lawyers top lawyers at these elite
Speaker 1: law firms, she is earning commissions. This is according to
Speaker 1: documents revealed by a whistleblower who worked with her at
Speaker 1: this At this legal headhunter firm that she was at,
Speaker 1: they say Jane Roberts generated wapping ten point three million
Speaker 1: dollars in commissions. This was paid out by corporations and
Speaker 1: by law firms for placing high dollar lawyers with them.
Speaker 1: They include analysis that for this industry, this is like
Speaker 1: the tippy top of the spectrum of what people make
Speaker 1: doing this job. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to
Speaker 1: figure out that. When it is the wife of the
Speaker 1: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who's like, hey, why
Speaker 1: don't you hire this lawyer big corporation or big law firm,
Speaker 1: You're probably going to do it. Why because you want
Speaker 1: to curry favor with the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court in case your clients or your business have business
Speaker 1: in front of the court, and maybe that personal relationship
Speaker 1: might be the thing that puts you over the top. Now,
Speaker 1: am I saying that that is one hundred percent happened,
Speaker 1: or that decisions have been swayed by this type of
Speaker 1: what I would consider wildly disgusting inappropriate relationship. No way
Speaker 1: to know, but every other federal judge in the country
Speaker 1: is supposed to help themselves to a standard of not
Speaker 1: even the appearance of impropriety, and yet we have to
Speaker 1: learn about these multimillion dollar payments from a whistleblower who
Speaker 1: worked with her, who said, this is insane. Let me
Speaker 1: read you a little bit of the statement, and then Sager,
Speaker 1: I want to hear your reaction to this. This whistleblower said,
Speaker 1: what I found out that the spouse of the Chief
Speaker 1: Justice was soliciting business from law firms. I knew immediately
Speaker 1: it was wrong. According to a whistleblower named Kendall B. Price,
Speaker 1: who worked a long side Jade Roberts at the legal
Speaker 1: recruiting firm Major Lindsay in Africa, she said, during the
Speaker 1: time I was there, I was discouraged from ever raising
Speaker 1: the issue, and I realized that even the law firms
Speaker 1: who were Jane's clients had nowhere to go. They were
Speaker 1: being asked by the spouse of the Chief Justice for
Speaker 1: business worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and there was
Speaker 1: no one to even complain to. Most of these firms
Speaker 1: were likely appearing or seeking to appear before the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: It is natural that they would do anything they felt
Speaker 1: was necessary to be competitive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just think that the issue is and I've
Speaker 2: actually heard of feminist arguments in defense of people like
Speaker 2: her Jinny Thomas, or actually any of the spouses of
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, and it's one of those where nobody
Speaker 2: asked you to be on the Supreme Court. When you do,
Speaker 2: you would presume you need to take extraordinary sacrifice. If
Speaker 2: you are the best legal recruiter on earth, let's just
Speaker 2: say that that's true. Well, then you probably should tell
Speaker 2: your husband, honey, can't go to the Supreme Court because
Speaker 2: I want to continue cashing in and making these dollars.
Speaker 2: But whenever your family signs up for that, then, frankly,
Speaker 2: especially whenever your finances are totally intertwined like this, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: it's just not appropriate, you know, and I see this constantly.
Speaker 2: You know, the amount of intermingling that I see of
Speaker 2: all of these justices would shock you. I mean I
Speaker 2: recently heard about, you know, Supreme Court justices and this
Speaker 2: is well known who are attending dinner parties with lawyers
Speaker 2: who are arguing things.
Speaker 3: Before their own before the court.
Speaker 2: Now, do you really believe that has no impact on
Speaker 2: that the social scene in terms of justice Brier or
Speaker 2: any of these others who are co mingling and sitting
Speaker 2: with people who are then appearing before the court. And
Speaker 2: this happens all the time in terms of this dirty
Speaker 2: secret relationship. And the crazy thing is is that these
Speaker 2: are the people who are supposed to make the law.
Speaker 2: And I just I don't care. You know, I've heard
Speaker 2: a lot of conservative defenses. They're going after Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 2: I don't like him. Yeah, it's certainly maybe true, but
Speaker 2: nobody made him just not report financial disclosures. And I
Speaker 2: was like, you're the one who do one of the
Speaker 2: reasons whenever you're one of the things you should do
Speaker 2: when you're a target, dot your eyes and across your tees,
Speaker 2: pay your taxes, make sure that your financial disclosure.
Speaker 3: Is that so much to ask? Yeah, I just don't
Speaker 3: think it is.
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas, and I think some of the other all
Speaker 1: of the conservative justices, to be honest with you, I mean,
Speaker 1: they have this view number one, that money is speech. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they look differently at this like money that's going
Speaker 1: to benefit them, their spousals whatever, Number one and number two.
Speaker 4: They also have this very limited view of.
Speaker 1: Corruption where it's actively like you have to be taking
Speaker 1: a bag of cash in exchange for what giving a
Speaker 1: favorable decision in order for them to view it as corruption.
Speaker 1: So their ideology has is at the core of this
Speaker 1: rot specifically with regard to the conservative justices, but I
Speaker 1: think it goes beyond the conservative justices. I think this
Speaker 1: is one of those instances where there's a whole ecosystem
Speaker 1: created around all of the justices on the Court. I
Speaker 1: think there is a view among the all or most
Speaker 1: of the justices that because they are put into this
Speaker 1: elite position of power, that they should live the high
Speaker 1: lifestyle of other elites who make a lot more money
Speaker 1: than they do.
Speaker 4: And so what do they make.
Speaker 1: They make like two hundred thousand dollars as a Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice. I mean they make a good amount of money, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, you out there will probably be, you know,
Speaker 1: feel pretty good about earning two hundred k. It's not
Speaker 1: some it's not a pittance, six two eighty six. So
Speaker 1: we're not talking about a pittance here, but they feel
Speaker 1: like they should be leading the life of a multi
Speaker 1: multi millionaire. And so when Harlan Crowe comes along and
Speaker 1: is going to take you on his you know, trip
Speaker 1: on his luxury super yacht and fly they're on the
Speaker 1: private jet and all in all spend half a million
Speaker 1: dollars on one vacation, you feel like that is the
Speaker 1: life that you have earned and deserved, rather than seeing
Speaker 1: yourself as a true public servant with a lot of
Speaker 1: power that yes, may come with sacrificing the multi multimillion
Speaker 1: dollar payouts that you could have achieved if you had
Speaker 1: gone to work in the private sector, and that may
Speaker 1: also come with a cause for your spouses in terms
Speaker 1: of some of the things that they have to go
Speaker 1: give up in terms of their own careers and ambitions, connections,
Speaker 1: et cetera. That's the true way that you look at
Speaker 1: public service, not how do I get around this measly
Speaker 1: almost three hundred K salary to cash into the tune
Speaker 1: of multi multimillions of dollars and live that high lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And I say this is an ecosystem because there's another
Speaker 1: piece that is, you know, lengthy from the New York
Speaker 1: Times about the way that universities, and specifically George Mason
Speaker 1: University have created these very cushy teaching positions, have done
Speaker 1: all sorts of over the top things to curry favor,
Speaker 1: specifically with the conservative justices. The George Mason Law School
Speaker 1: has now been named the Scalia Law School. They are
Speaker 1: deeply entwined with the Federalist Society. This has become one of,
Speaker 1: if not the major locus of sort of conservative ideological
Speaker 1: legal thought in the entire country, and very intentionally made it.
Speaker 4: So put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: This next piece, the headline year is how Scalia Law
Speaker 1: School became a key friend of the court. George Mason
Speaker 1: University's Law school cultivated ties to justices with generous pay
Speaker 1: and unusual perks.
Speaker 4: In turn, it.
Speaker 1: Gained prestige, donations and influence. So here's the way this
Speaker 1: cycle works. George Mason University offers these tremendous perks, things like, oh,
Speaker 1: you'll go teach in whatever city you pick in Italy
Speaker 1: for multiple weeks, so it put you up there. This
Speaker 1: is one of the loopholes of things that Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justices are allowed to do outside of their work on
Speaker 1: the court.
Speaker 4: We'll put you up.
Speaker 1: There in you know, lavish fashion. We'll pay for your meals.
Speaker 1: You did a little bit of teaching in the morning,
Speaker 1: I guess, but then you can do whatever you want
Speaker 1: the rest of the day. So and there're these sort
Speaker 1: of bespoke experiences created to lure the justices. They use
Speaker 1: their proximity to the justices to raise hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars for these law schools, so the school benefits tremendously,
Speaker 1: and then lo and behold, their students also end up
Speaker 1: getting far more Supreme Court clerkships and other high level
Speaker 1: elite clerkships than they ever did before. So it's again
Speaker 1: this whole ecosystem that is created of favor trading and big,
Speaker 1: big money. And again to get to the influence here,
Speaker 1: also a lot of the justice's co professors end up
Speaker 1: filing amicist briefs intended to sway the court. So these
Speaker 1: are people that they've met, that they've taught with, that
Speaker 1: they've gone on lavish Italian or whatever vacations with, and
Speaker 1: they're submitting briefs Scalia law professors, they say, are not
Speaker 1: simply regular amicist brief filers. A quarter of the school's
Speaker 1: brief submitted to the court since the justices joined the
Speaker 1: faculty have been written by professors who served as the
Speaker 1: justice's co teachers, some while classes were ongoing. So it
Speaker 1: would it creates the appearance of an explicit attempt to
Speaker 1: use the people that the justices know in order to
Speaker 1: sway their decisions on the court.
Speaker 2: Here, Yeah, I think I just think it's important too,
Speaker 2: where this is a look into the contemptive. I mean,
Speaker 2: Harvard University has multiple people who have fellowships and connections.
Speaker 2: I mean, all of these justices are intertwined in a
Speaker 2: nonprofit corporate industrial complex, which is difficult to wrap your
Speaker 2: mind around. I also don't think that people fully appreciate
Speaker 2: how much big law is ingrained in all of us.
Speaker 3: As well.
Speaker 2: There are only a couple of firms that really specialize
Speaker 2: in Supreme Court litigation and Low and Behold.
Speaker 3: They hire a bunch of former clerks.
Speaker 2: This is a social scene, probably more than anything. I
Speaker 2: have limited insight because I know a few people who
Speaker 2: are involved.
Speaker 3: I mean, they consider themselves like families.
Speaker 2: Like once you've it's almost like the mafia, Like once
Speaker 2: you've been a clerk for like one particular justice, you're
Speaker 2: like part of this world of former clerks and they
Speaker 2: help each other and all that they all know about
Speaker 2: what's going on behind the scenes and whispers and it
Speaker 2: all entails like Harvard and Yale gossip.
Speaker 3: So it's actually pretty incestuous and gross.
Speaker 2: But anyway, the point is is that there's a tremendous
Speaker 2: amount of money that is involved with all of this,
Speaker 2: where the appearance of corruption has been there, I would
Speaker 2: just say for a long time, and I think it's
Speaker 2: a good thing that we're all beginning to look into it.
Speaker 2: So people are like, oh, they're going after the concern.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, nothing is stopping you, by the way,
Speaker 2: from going out and finding the same with Ellen and
Speaker 2: Kagan or show to my or I guarantee you it's
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 3: I guarantee you.
Speaker 1: Even with the George Mason University Law School, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, a sort of a hotbed
Speaker 1: for conservative legal thought. Now some of the other justice
Speaker 1: I think Kagan was named in this piece as well
Speaker 1: as getting some you know, cushy gigs and them reaching
Speaker 1: out to her as well because they don't care. They
Speaker 1: curry influence in favor with whoever, regardless of what your
Speaker 1: ideology really is. So just to you know, finish this off.
Speaker 1: I want to read you a little bit of the
Speaker 1: details here of Justice Gorsic planning his Italian teaching gig.
Speaker 1: The Law school was courting him in twenty seventeen. They
Speaker 1: asked him to help choose the Italian city where for
Speaker 1: two weeks the following summer he would co teach a
Speaker 1: seminar on national security and the separation of powers. A
Speaker 1: memo offered options including Padua I don't know how you
Speaker 1: say it to your city in a picturesque setting, Venice
Speaker 1: with a seven mile long sand bar known as Ledo,
Speaker 1: and Bologna, Italy's most prestigious academic city. In the end,
Speaker 1: the class would be in Padua, where the law school
Speaker 1: put up the Justice and his family, and what a
Speaker 1: listening described as an aristocratic, antique filled apartment in the
Speaker 1: heart of the old town. A draft handbook for the
Speaker 1: trip email to Justice gor which made clear his teaching
Speaker 1: responsibilities would be limited to the mornings, leaving plenty of
Speaker 1: time for excursions, including planned visits in the afternoon.
Speaker 4: Fantastico, the Justice responded, It's.
Speaker 2: Nice work if he can get it, folks. Bologna is
Speaker 2: a beautiful city.
Speaker 3: I'll give him that.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about the White House Correspondence dinner.
Speaker 2: We've got the best I think of Joe Biden's performance. Again,
Speaker 2: I want to be fair the guy he hey had
Speaker 2: win of his good days that exists. I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: his delivery or jokes were all that great. But what
Speaker 2: I found interesting is how much time he spent going
Speaker 2: after Ron. It's like DeSantis was a main character, almost
Speaker 2: more than Trump was. Of course Trump got several jokes there,
Speaker 2: but he really did didn't appear to be going after DeSantis.
Speaker 2: I think in a special way. One of those was
Speaker 2: the focus of President Biden's jokes.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say at Rod DeSantis.
Speaker 5: I had a lot of rand Rod de Santra's jokes ready,
Speaker 5: but but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me
Speaker 5: and got there first. He Look, can't be too rough.
Speaker 9: For the guy.
Speaker 5: After his re election as governor, he was asked if
Speaker 5: he had a man date. He said, hell, no, I'm straight.
Speaker 6: I'm straight.
Speaker 5: You same ancient my same wise, the same.
Speaker 6: Over the hill.
Speaker 5: Don Lemon would say, that's the man that was frying. Look,
Speaker 5: it's great the cable moves and networks are here. Tonight,
Speaker 5: MSNBC owned by NBC Universal, Fox News owned by Dominion
Speaker 5: Voting Systems. I'm going to turn this over to Roy.
Speaker 7: Roy.
Speaker 6: The plot him is yours.
Speaker 5: I'm going to be fine with your jokes, but I'm
Speaker 5: not sure about dark branding.
Speaker 3: I mean, the dark Brandon broke. They were okay, I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 1: I like the Lemon Prime joke, but don Lemon pre
Speaker 1: even Man, it's so overwrought now at this point, well
Speaker 1: every YouTube comment is like the limits past his prime,
Speaker 1: and that's funny.
Speaker 2: I mean, don't get me wrong. Yeah, it's like we're
Speaker 2: several days late to the discourse.
Speaker 3: I thought you did fine.
Speaker 2: I didn't think there was anything in there, like a
Speaker 2: particular singer. I enjoyed the Fox News joke. I thought
Speaker 2: that was probably the best joke.
Speaker 4: We always grade Biden on a bit of a curve.
Speaker 4: I feel like you can't help.
Speaker 1: But be like, oh, you'd be like, you know, but
Speaker 1: energy and bear and okay, some of these jokes like
Speaker 1: half Landed not bad. I also I can't help the
Speaker 1: reflect on how much this whole dinner has diminished a
Speaker 1: good points during the Obama years.
Speaker 4: I mean, that was the height of the like.
Speaker 3: Social Yeah, it was the height.
Speaker 1: Of the media administration social scene and this you know,
Speaker 1: glittering like excited, optimistic people felt still excited about Obama's
Speaker 1: He was very good at delivering the jokes. He was
Speaker 1: genuinely funny, like had good timing. They'd use the Daily
Speaker 1: Show writers, I think, to help to help craft.
Speaker 4: The jokes, et cetera.
Speaker 1: It was a real it was huge to do in
Speaker 1: DC and to get that invite and all the after
Speaker 1: parties and all of that, and Trump to his credit,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the thing, one of the things
Speaker 1: that he really killed, and I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: I also can't help but there's always at this dinner
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like moralizing about the free press
Speaker 1: and importance the free press, and I just can't take
Speaker 1: them seriously anymore. I mean, it's like, okay, then, why
Speaker 1: is Juliana Sune locked up?
Speaker 4: Why are you getting like, you know, the.
Speaker 1: Questions in advance, mister president before you go out there
Speaker 1: and do your pressors. Why don't you do press conferences
Speaker 1: more often? Why don't you sit for interviews more often?
Speaker 1: If you actually respect this institution, respect the free press,
Speaker 1: respect its importance as a critical you know, bedrock of democracy,
Speaker 1: as you should so I just have a hard time
Speaker 1: taking these people.
Speaker 3: The whole thing is gross, even the comedians.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, nothing will ever top Stephen Colbert, you know,
Speaker 2: just absolutely efistraating George W.
Speaker 3: Bush to his face.
Speaker 2: There are a few others, but that is just I mean,
Speaker 2: that's what that's actual courage, honestly, Like, that's what that
Speaker 2: should look like. When the White House Correspondence Association president
Speaker 2: roast the President to his face or speaks up, brings
Speaker 2: up press access issues, urge him to do more press conference, that's.
Speaker 3: What you should do. That's not what happened. And then
Speaker 3: same with the comedian.
Speaker 2: The comedian should not be, should not be like culturally
Speaker 2: going after like whoever is the opponent.
Speaker 3: Of the president? Roy Wood, It did an okay job.
Speaker 2: I think of poking some fun at Biden, but there's
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more to play with here.
Speaker 3: There is what we thought were some of.
Speaker 9: His best Happy to be here real quick, miss President,
Speaker 9: I think you left some of your class of our
Speaker 9: documents up here. You can get took a little Yeah no,
Speaker 9: don't get him to him. I'll put him in a
Speaker 9: safe place. He don't know where to keep him. I'mas
Speaker 9: scandals have been devouring careers this year. The untouchable Tucker
Speaker 9: Crosson is out of a job. Now, Okay, some people
Speaker 9: celebrate it, But to Tucker's staff, I want you to
Speaker 9: know that I know what you're feeling. I work at
Speaker 9: the Daily Show, so I too have been blindsided by
Speaker 9: the sudden departure of the host of a fake news program.
Speaker 9: No scandal more damaging than the scandal of is Joe
Speaker 9: Biden awake? Hey, say what you want about our president,
Speaker 9: but when you wake up from that nap work gets done,
Speaker 9: he might doze off with and infrastructure bills, student loan forgiveness.
Speaker 9: Senator hmm, do we free Britony ground or free Britain
Speaker 9: the ground? The issue with good media is that most
Speaker 9: people can't afford that all the essential, fair and nuanced reporting.
Speaker 9: It's all stuff behind a paywall. People can't afford let
Speaker 9: people can't afford food, not healthy food. They can't afford
Speaker 9: an education. They damn sure can't afford to pay for
Speaker 9: the truth. But you all can't afford to go find
Speaker 9: the truth for free.
Speaker 2: It was okay, you know, like I said, you know,
Speaker 2: at least you poked fun at Biden's age. I think
Speaker 2: the takeaways, Like you said, it's just almost irrelevant now
Speaker 2: at this point. Where as it was a big to do,
Speaker 2: now it's not.
Speaker 3: And I think that's probably a good thing, you know.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to give credits for killing it
Speaker 2: was Trump because he didn't attend I think for his
Speaker 2: entire four years in office, it lost the cultural cachet.
Speaker 2: Then COVID happened. Not enough people were able to come
Speaker 2: in in the first two years. They tried to make
Speaker 2: it into a whole thing with all the vanity fair
Speaker 2: parties and all that. But because it's such a bad
Speaker 2: time for the media business, they don't have the cash
Speaker 2: to throw these things in the same way. On top
Speaker 2: of the Don Lemon firings and the cable crashing and
Speaker 2: the CNN drama, etc. They just don't have the same
Speaker 2: level of like being on the upswing that they thought
Speaker 2: they were back in two thousand and like ten, they're twenty.
Speaker 4: Eleven, dying relic of a struggling industry. That's what it
Speaker 4: feels like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think Glenn Greenwall's always referred to it as Versailles,
Speaker 2: and I think that's very app actually, Julia Fox came
Speaker 2: in whiteface.
Speaker 3: So it really is one of those where it's as
Speaker 3: Versailles as it gets.
Speaker 4: Tager, what are you looking at?
Speaker 3: Well? Is Fox News the star or the stars on
Speaker 3: its channel?
Speaker 2: This is the biggest debate happening right now inside the
Speaker 2: media business. And if you ask ten years ago, the
Speaker 2: answer was obvious. It's Fox News. It was under the
Speaker 2: control of the Iron control of its founder and president
Speaker 2: Roger Railes. It had fired its highest rated talent, Glenn Beck,
Speaker 2: for getting too big for bridges, and survived it gotten
Speaker 2: rid of O'Reilly despite his mainstay on TVs for nearly
Speaker 2: twenty years. Bounce back soon with the Tucker Carlson Tonight's show.
Speaker 2: That's the line that you're seeing over and over and
Speaker 2: over again. And history often rhymes teaching us many lessons.
Speaker 2: Too many people, though, are not realizing how much times
Speaker 2: have changed. The reason that Fox Knews survived O'Reilly's departure
Speaker 2: was not just Tucker's talent and difference in programming in
Speaker 2: taking over the time slot. It was because it happened
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, the biggest Fox News and cable news
Speaker 2: boom in modern history. It was squarely not just during
Speaker 2: the Trump era, where the content was endless and in
Speaker 2: the Fox context, his people were more riled up, more
Speaker 2: dedicated than ever to tune in and see how their
Speaker 2: beloved savior, Donald Trump was being persecuted. That's not the
Speaker 2: case right now, is it? And not only is it
Speaker 2: not the case, it's not going to be the case again.
Speaker 3: How do I know?
Speaker 2: Because if you haven't noticed, Rupert Murdoch, the founder of
Speaker 2: Fox News, is trying to move on from Trump, not
Speaker 2: just move on, but actively pushing Governor Ron DeSantis and
Speaker 2: Trump's people. They're taking notice. You already had Steve Bannon
Speaker 2: call out Murdoch from the seapack stage. You've had Trump
Speaker 2: release multiple statements going after Fox News. You've had Trump
Speaker 2: basically move for his most fawning interviews to the Newsmax channel.
Speaker 2: And that brings me to my point. This time is
Speaker 2: different because of a major and one word competition. In
Speaker 2: two thousands seventeen, Fox News was the universal hub of MAGA,
Speaker 2: but Stop the Steal changed everything. Even when Fox had
Speaker 2: to back away from its claims around the stolen election,
Speaker 2: people flocked them to newsbacks to One America News. We
Speaker 2: saw Trump blackout of coverage and their ratings during the
Speaker 2: Biden era, like most cable news channels, have been lower
Speaker 2: than ever before. But even I was stunned at how
Speaker 2: right I appear to be with the latest numbers from
Speaker 2: Fox News primetime. Consider on April twenty first, Carlson's last show,
Speaker 2: Fox News got two point sixty five million viewers. The
Speaker 2: day that he was fired was roughly the same, probably
Speaker 2: because the Boomers who watch it hadn't even heard it
Speaker 2: was fired. The next day, though, Boom, they dropped by
Speaker 2: one million viewers. By April twenty six, they were now
Speaker 2: one point three to three million. That is their lowest
Speaker 2: primetime figure since pre nine to eleven. And it's not
Speaker 2: just Fox News's decline which makes things so interesting, it's
Speaker 2: where those people went. Newsmax ratings skyrocketed after Tucker's firing.
Speaker 2: Eric Bowling's eight PM show has gained five hundred thousand viewers.
Speaker 2: That's a four hundred percent increase from the week before.
Speaker 2: Insanity not just the Newsmax ratings, though it actually was
Speaker 2: roughly eighty percent of what CNN's Anderson Cooper gained on
Speaker 2: the exact same day, meaning CNN and Cooper could soon
Speaker 2: fall behind Newsmax in primetime, making them number four. None
Speaker 2: of this, though, stopped Brian Stelter from somehow rearing his
Speaker 2: ugly head again in the Tucker Carlson debates. Simply cannot
Speaker 2: quit cable news even if they have quit him. Stelter
Speaker 2: wrote a fawning tribute to the cable news medium in
Speaker 2: New York Times which bears dismantling. The crux of his
Speaker 2: argument is Fox News is still the star, as is
Speaker 2: all the cable channels, all because cable TV has the
Speaker 2: cultural power now. In other words, while CNN and Fox
Speaker 2: News ratings are low, according to Stelter, because their clips
Speaker 2: circulate online from Twitter to YouTube or elsewhere, it's much
Speaker 2: bigger and look, he is not wrong, at least in part.
Speaker 2: The reason why I think though it's pathetic cope is this.
Speaker 2: Anyone who works in the content game knows sure you
Speaker 2: can get twenty million views on a viral Twitter clip,
Speaker 2: it means squat for revenue. More So, even if you
Speaker 2: do have viral for the right reason, you got very
Speaker 2: little proof any of those people are going to stick
Speaker 2: around for you for the months to come. Most importantly,
Speaker 2: Twitter or YouTube views is not going to float a
Speaker 2: behemoth business like Fox News, MSNBC or CNN, and CNN
Speaker 2: is a dying business. We still should not forget. Though
Speaker 2: their profit margin is some one billion dollars a year.
Speaker 2: Fox is actually two billion, MSNBC in the same range.
Speaker 2: How are they making all this money? How do you
Speaker 2: make a billion dollars when you're failing at your job?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why again. The cable providers are the
Speaker 2: ones who pay them.
Speaker 3: When you pay X amount.
Speaker 2: For cable TV, a pretty good chunk of change is
Speaker 2: going directly into the cable news profits. Those fees make
Speaker 2: up the bulk of the profit centers of these companies.
Speaker 2: It floats their multi billion dollar operation millions of YouTube views.
Speaker 2: That's just fine for a company like ours. But we're
Speaker 2: a startup, We're lean, mean, we work much harder than
Speaker 2: these fat cat executives.
Speaker 3: We punch big above our weight.
Speaker 2: But that's not going to work when you're paying rent
Speaker 2: on skyscrapers in Manhattan, or floating the whims and billionaire
Speaker 2: fortunes of Rupert Murdoch and whatever house or wife he
Speaker 2: wants next. The ultimately is why cable news, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: is doomed. It is why, in my opinion, Tucker and
Speaker 2: Maddow are probably the last to ever play the game
Speaker 2: at this level, and even they honestly they were on
Speaker 2: their way out too. Consider this press release from April
Speaker 2: two thousand and three. Bill O'Reilly was the king of
Speaker 2: Fox when he was getting six million viewers on his show.
Speaker 3: They list his.
Speaker 2: Competitors at CNN with a record five million average. Think
Speaker 2: about that, Tucker at his best was half O'Reilly.
Speaker 3: Twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: CNN collapsed by five hundred percent in the same time period.
Speaker 2: At the same time, the trends are only accelerating in
Speaker 2: the opposite direction. Last month, the latest twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: numbers came out, six million people cut cable in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, a million more than the year before that,
Speaker 2: double what it was in June twenty twenty one. Next
Speaker 2: year it's going to be even higher. Already, only thirty
Speaker 2: percent of people between the age of eighteen and twenty
Speaker 2: five pay for cable. Unsurprisingly, households with US adults above
Speaker 2: the age of sixty five are the overwhelming consumers of
Speaker 2: the cable news platform. As I laid out in my
Speaker 2: Actuarial Table monologue, it's not looking good for them. Either
Speaker 2: on a long term basis, So in the end, I
Speaker 2: don't think things are looking good for Cable.
Speaker 3: That's it, Crystal.
Speaker 2: I mean you can take a look at this, and
Speaker 2: you know, Brian Stelter and others are trying with the
Speaker 2: cope of look yeah, but cumulatively they're getting eighteen million
Speaker 2: views a week.
Speaker 1: That'd be And if you want to hear my reaction
Speaker 1: to Sagres's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 3: Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Speaker 1: Well, guys, the biggest union in the state is pointedly
Speaker 1: declining to endorse Joe Biden. The state Democratic Party chair
Speaker 1: is furious, and Democratic members of Congress are begging Biden
Speaker 1: to reconsider. The media is finally waking up to the
Speaker 1: fact that Joe Biden is facing utter disaster in the
Speaker 1: state of New Hampshire in early primary state mess entirely
Speaker 1: of his own making, because in attempting to snub and
Speaker 1: demote the Granite State, he may actually be handing their
Speaker 1: voters a club to punish him and.
Speaker 4: To elevate his rivals.
Speaker 1: He has basically scheduled an early loss for himself in
Speaker 1: this crucial state. Now, over the past few days, multiple
Speaker 1: mainstream outlets have published panic reports about how Marian Williamson
Speaker 1: or Bobby Kennedy Junior could end up with the win
Speaker 1: in New Hampshire. But of course, in typical fashion, these
Speaker 1: reports are slathered with layers of cope and spin about
Speaker 1: how losing an early state, obviously that's not going to matter,
Speaker 1: pissing off voters in the swing state, that's no big deal,
Speaker 1: and that Biden is in no way whatsoever vulnerable in
Speaker 1: this primary. The truth, of course, is a lot more complex.
Speaker 1: You got the oldest president in history, you got a
Speaker 1: base dying for alternatives. You're effectively stating in early state
Speaker 1: to one.
Speaker 4: Of your rivals. That sounds like trouble.
Speaker 1: In spite of the media's anxious assurances that this is
Speaker 1: all no big deal and really means nothing, methinks they
Speaker 1: doth protest too much. So here is the backstory. New
Speaker 1: Hampshire voters have never been too keen on this current president.
Speaker 1: During his two thousand and eight run, he was pulling
Speaker 1: so miserably in the state that he withdrew before voters
Speaker 1: could actually render a vert. In twenty twenty, you will
Speaker 1: recall he finished in a humiliating fifth place behind Bernie Pete,
Speaker 1: Amy Klobashar, and even Elizabeth Warren So. In an attempt
Speaker 1: to deny New Hampshire voters a chance to hand the
Speaker 1: president yet another poor result, he and the DNC collaborated
Speaker 1: to strip them of their first primary positioning in the
Speaker 1: Democratic primaries. Instead, they gave South Carolina the top spot,
Speaker 1: a state where Biden can depend on Jim Clyburn rather
Speaker 1: than his own appeal, and where Democrats can pretend that
Speaker 1: their real concern is diverse representation rather than outright rigging
Speaker 1: of the democratic process. Of course, the truth is so
Speaker 1: obvious that some top Democrats they don't even deny it.
Speaker 4: Listen to what Leah.
Speaker 1: Dowtry, a longtime top DNC official and Rules Committee member,
Speaker 1: recently admitted to New York Times reporter Astead herndon, how.
Speaker 8: Do we separate those reasons from the politics of it?
Speaker 8: Because at the same time I went Hampshire States to
Speaker 8: Abiden de badan South Carolina as a state he did
Speaker 8: well in. Couldn't this also be read as a president
Speaker 8: rewarding the state or prioritizing the state that serves political
Speaker 8: Joseph And.
Speaker 10: Okay, I don't have a problem with that. He's a person,
Speaker 10: he's the head of the party, so he gets to
Speaker 10: make the decisions that are best for the party, whether
Speaker 10: his personal interests played a role aligned with our objectives,
Speaker 10: which is to shake up this system, to ensure that
Speaker 10: the base of your party, who shows up every single
Speaker 10: cycle for you, have an early sing.
Speaker 8: That's interesting because sometimes leve been asking them, folks that
Speaker 8: question may mean asking like, politics is just not thevolve
Speaker 8: to this political party, just about this is just about
Speaker 8: you know, representation.
Speaker 3: It was just about as I appreciate you.
Speaker 8: Saying that, because I feel like it has to be political.
Speaker 10: I mean, for this is the Democratic Party.
Speaker 6: We are political.
Speaker 10: Every decision we make is political, So I think, you know,
Speaker 10: to say that.
Speaker 6: It's not is kind of disingenuous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I kind of appreciate the honesty here.
Speaker 1: So they fixed it up perfect for Biden, right, wrapped
Speaker 1: it in some identity virtue signaling good to go.
Speaker 4: Right not quite.
Speaker 1: First of all, South Carolina is not anywhere close to
Speaker 1: being a competitive state for the general election, while New
Speaker 1: Hampshire is a perennial swing state that Donald Trump has
Speaker 1: come very close to winning. So if you're all the
Speaker 1: fascists are at the door and democracies on the line,
Speaker 1: and we must do absolutely everything to stop them pissing off.
Speaker 4: The entirety of a vital battleground state.
Speaker 1: That seems like a pretty bad idea, but more immediately,
Speaker 1: for Biden, it has created a political quandary because New
Speaker 1: Hampshire is not planning to back down from their first
Speaker 1: in the nation status, and actually they can't back down
Speaker 1: even if they wanted to. A state law requires New
Speaker 1: Hampshire to go first, and since the state is right
Speaker 1: now controlled by Republicans, they have no desire to help
Speaker 1: Joe Biden out of his little jam here. So he
Speaker 1: can put his name on the ballot and effectively abandon
Speaker 1: his plan to have South Carolina go first, not to mention,
Speaker 1: he'll then be in an actual competition in a state
Speaker 1: that is furious with him. Or he can not put
Speaker 1: his name on the ballot and let Bobby Kennedy Junior
Speaker 1: or Maryanne win and pray that his media allies effectively
Speaker 1: convince everyone that this is inconsequential and doesn't matter whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Or he can do a low key riding campaign, which
Speaker 1: carries a huge amount of risks because then he is
Speaker 1: competing with all the risk and potential embarrassment, but he's
Speaker 1: put himself at a major disadvantage by not actually having
Speaker 1: his name a peer on the ballot. In a sign
Speaker 1: of the mounting political troubles, the state's largest union, as
Speaker 1: I alluded to earlier, just issued a statement pointedly declaring
Speaker 1: they are not endorsing Biden and also demanding an actually
Speaker 1: democratic process. They say, after careful consideration, we are not
Speaker 1: endorsing Joe Biden for reelection in the presidential race at
Speaker 1: this time. Following a robust analysis of the current political landscape,
Speaker 1: we have come to the conclusion that our members at
Speaker 1: New Hampshire voters deserve a competitive Democratic primary. Couple this
Speaker 1: with Democratic members of Congress hitting the panic button, and
Speaker 1: the media was actually forced to cover it. Politico has
Speaker 1: gotten article out headlined Biden's New Hampshire mess. NBC News
Speaker 1: has a similar piece headlined why Biden may have to
Speaker 1: forfeit the first contest in his reelection bid to Marian
Speaker 1: Williamson or RFK Junior. But while they admit the issue,
Speaker 1: both outlets of course go out of their way to
Speaker 1: insert a million Biden approved caveats about how this is
Speaker 1: all no big deal. NBC characterizes Bobby Kennedy and mariann
Speaker 1: as quote fringe rivals, in spite of the fact Bobby
Speaker 1: Kennedy is his eating twenty percent in polls both have
Speaker 1: pulled in double digits. The article goes on to describe
Speaker 1: a potential Biden loss there as inconsequential quotes Democrats handwringing,
Speaker 1: not about the two candidates in double digits already in
Speaker 1: the race, but about potential quote big name Democrats who
Speaker 1: might decide to jump in. Well, guys, you can relax.
Speaker 1: No elite approved candidate is going to primary Biden. Politico's
Speaker 1: coverage is, if anything, even worse. They compare Kennedy and
Speaker 1: Williamson to the convicted felon who won forty one percent
Speaker 1: against Obama in West Virginia in twenty twelve, as if
Speaker 1: an obscure federal inmate is remotely similar to two nationally
Speaker 1: known figures, one of whom hails for the most famous
Speaker 1: political family in the entire country, and as if the
Speaker 1: West Virginia primary holds nearly the significance as the New
Speaker 1: Hampshire primary does. As if that's not enough, They explicitly
Speaker 1: in this article assert that Biden's nomination is in no
Speaker 1: danger and that losing this primary is totally fine and cool.
Speaker 4: They write, quote, either way.
Speaker 1: Losing a primary that doesn't actually count for anything isn't
Speaker 1: a problem. Nor are Kennedy and Williamson a threat to
Speaker 1: the President's renomination, not by any stretch. This isn't an
Speaker 1: opinion piece. Remember, it is a supposed journalist offering ironclad
Speaker 1: assurances that Biden faces no threat at all. Look, maybe,
Speaker 1: but guess what y' all been wrong about a whole lot.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it's not up to you to
Speaker 1: decide who is a threat and who is not, what's
Speaker 1: a big deal and what is not.
Speaker 4: That's up to the voters.
Speaker 1: Take a look at these latest primary polls from Emerson
Speaker 1: courtesy of our friend Zagger. Here Kennedy is actually outperforming
Speaker 1: DeSantis in these bols. Does the media say, oh, DeSantis
Speaker 1: isn't its threat, He's not serious. Marianne is outpolling every
Speaker 1: other Republican on the list. Do so called journalists go
Speaker 1: out of their way to label Nikky Haley, Mike pensonco fringe.
Speaker 1: Tim Scott is literally at zero percent. Does the media
Speaker 1: feel the need to nervously guarantee its readers he isn't
Speaker 1: by any stretch a threat to Trump's nomination. Look, Biden
Speaker 1: is the favorite, there's no doubt about it. But when
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the country says they don't want him,
Speaker 1: no amount of media cope and propaganda should persuade you
Speaker 1: that he is not vulnerable, especially when he's not even
Speaker 1: capable apparently of campaigning. The media is doing all they
Speaker 1: can to cover for this man to persuade everyone. They
Speaker 1: have no other choice in the matter. If Biden's opponents
Speaker 1: are really so fringe, not a threat by any stretch
Speaker 1: in their language, then they should have no problem calling
Speaker 1: for debates so our president can show the nation.
Speaker 4: Why he deserves to be re elected.
Speaker 1: And this new Hampshire thing is a real problem, and
Speaker 1: I see this as an attempt by the media to
Speaker 1: get ahead of it and pre spin.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 1: Joining us now we have seth Hattannah. He is a
Speaker 1: contributing editor at Rolling Stone, and also he is the
Speaker 1: journalist behind the spy Talk substack, which I highly recommend
Speaker 1: to all of you to subscribe to.
Speaker 4: Great to have you.
Speaker 6: Seth Thanks for having me, Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's our pleasure.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this tear sheet up on the
Speaker 1: screen that was flagged for me. So you got a
Speaker 1: hold of some court filings that shed some light on
Speaker 1: a key meeting in the run up to nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and put the element up on the screen there, guys,
Speaker 1: this is something that this is something that a lot
Speaker 1: of folks have focused on, which is you had two
Speaker 1: of the eventual hijackers in this supposedly theoretically chance encounter
Speaker 1: with a man named Omar al Bayoumi who was a
Speaker 1: Saudi intelligence asset.
Speaker 4: Take us back to that meeting.
Speaker 1: Why that meeting ends up being so significant in what
Speaker 1: you were able to uncover through your reporting.
Speaker 11: Well, it's one of those extraordinary meetings you read about
Speaker 11: in spy stories, something that seems like an innocuous, everyday
Speaker 11: event that turns out to be a huge, huge, momentous
Speaker 11: event in the nine to eleven attacks. So this happened
Speaker 11: at a restaurant in Los Angeles, Middle Eastern restaurant over
Speaker 11: all by Umi was there, supposedly by chance, he says,
Speaker 11: drops a piece of paper and strikes up a conversation
Speaker 11: with these two men who also just happen to be there.
Speaker 6: Now we know a lot more. You know, it's taken
Speaker 6: twenty years to learn that Obar Bayomi was a.
Speaker 11: Saudi intelligence asset and that he was directed to go
Speaker 11: there by a network, an intelligence network that was Saudi
Speaker 11: intelligence networks operating inside the United States. And the more
Speaker 11: astonishing fact is, uh, there are onions. This is like
Speaker 11: an onion that you have to feel, is that many
Speaker 11: at THEI agents believe that not only was this not
Speaker 11: a chance encounter, but it was being directed by the CIA,
Speaker 11: who was using the Saudis to try to recruit a
Speaker 11: member of al Qaida.
Speaker 6: The two guys who had just arrived in the United
Speaker 6: States and were at that at least.
Speaker 2: Uring the restaurant, right, Yeah, this has been a focus
Speaker 2: of the you know, with your what was it the
Speaker 2: thirty eighteen pages or whatever, the hidden pages. We've known
Speaker 2: about the al Biomi meeting for a very long time.
Speaker 2: But can you go into a little bit about why
Speaker 2: the CIA would be pursuing this. I'm not sure, you know,
Speaker 2: many of our viewers probably weren't even born on nine
Speaker 2: to eleven, so one of the important things for people
Speaker 2: to step back is there was a big rivalry between
Speaker 2: the CIA Al Qaeda unit and the FBI Al Qaida
Speaker 2: unit with no intelligence sharing, which resulted in the fact
Speaker 2: that these two gents were even allowed to come to
Speaker 2: the United States along with the rest of the nine
Speaker 2: to eleven hijackers, despite being known to intelligence authorities, without
Speaker 2: ever flagging it to the FBI.
Speaker 3: This looks like it might have been an intentional cover up.
Speaker 2: Am I right in that set and just lay out
Speaker 2: some of what I'm talking about for the audience.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So that's what the FBI agents believe. They believe that.
Speaker 11: The CIA knew Littee I did know that these two
Speaker 11: guys had arrived in the United States.
Speaker 6: We know that for a fact.
Speaker 11: What happened was there were FBI agents who were co
Speaker 11: located inside the CIA, which means that they were there
Speaker 11: to report on something that might be of interest to
Speaker 11: the FBI. If there's a the CIA cannot operate, cannot
Speaker 11: really conduct spy operations against United States citizens, but the
Speaker 11: FBI can. So the CI will tip tip the FBI,
Speaker 11: Hey there's a guy of interest.
Speaker 6: And so they had this.
Speaker 11: They had two guys of interest, two guys from al Qaeda.
Speaker 9: Uh.
Speaker 11: The reason why this was of interest to the CIA
Speaker 11: is they were desperate to get a source inside al Qaeda,
Speaker 11: al Qaeda the terrorist network, and like all terrorist networks
Speaker 11: are very closed circuit. They rely on very personal communications,
Speaker 11: bonds of trust, very hard to get a source in there.
Speaker 11: So these two guys arrived at this restaurant and here's
Speaker 11: a golden opportunity for the CIA.
Speaker 6: To land a source. The FBI also learns that these two.
Speaker 11: Guys through the CIA, they learned these two guys are
Speaker 11: in the United States, and they type up a memo
Speaker 11: to say, hey, FBI headquarters, these guys are here, and
Speaker 11: they are not allowed to send that memo. They are
Speaker 11: told to stand down that this is not of interest
Speaker 11: to the FBI, and that has really left the FBI
Speaker 11: agents who are there and it's something they can't let
Speaker 11: go of and led it's one of the pieces that
Speaker 11: led them to believe that this was, you know, an
Speaker 11: intentional cover up, that they were keeping the FAI out
Speaker 11: of the loop so that they could recruit these two
Speaker 11: Al Qaida hijackers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: You write in your article the theory that the CIA
Speaker 1: had launched a failed effort to recruit the hijackers through
Speaker 1: the Saudis has been around for years and was always
Speaker 1: circumstantial at best, but the document obtained by Spytalk reveals
Speaker 1: there is more evidence to support it. When former FBI
Speaker 1: agent claimed to the investigator that the CIA possesses top
Speaker 1: secret operational files in a quote paper trail about that
Speaker 1: Saudi spy that's al Bayoumi who met the hijackers that
Speaker 1: are still being suppressed, a CIA spokesperson denied the agency
Speaker 1: was hiding information. The FBI declined to comment. Can you
Speaker 1: talk to us about the significance of that and also
Speaker 1: what's the context within which you were able to obtain
Speaker 1: these documents?
Speaker 11: Okay, So these documents were filed in Guantanamo where the
Speaker 11: nine to eleven defense are on trial. They've been held
Speaker 11: there for twenty years and they've been interminable core proceedings
Speaker 11: going on. This was on the docket. It was posted,
Speaker 11: but it was posted almost It was posted completely redacted.
Speaker 6: It was twenty one pages of basically black sheets.
Speaker 11: But I heard, I read some discussions about this cable
Speaker 11: about this document staring, and I was able to obtain
Speaker 11: a copy. Yeah, the thing that really jumped out of
Speaker 11: me was the thing you just mentioned one agent who
Speaker 11: says that the CIA has paper, there's a paper trail,
Speaker 11: And you know, for years the FBI and others had
Speaker 11: had had believed this theory that there was a CIA
Speaker 11: operation that failed to try to recruit these hijackers. But
Speaker 11: now it seems there's a paper trail that's just gotten
Speaker 11: lost or hidden or whatever, and that would show that
Speaker 11: the CI had contact at some time without Bayoumi.
Speaker 6: We don't know what those papers.
Speaker 11: Say, but operational cables means that, you know that there
Speaker 11: was some kind of cr operation that ran across all
Speaker 11: Bayoumi somewhere we don't know where. But it's it's evidence,
Speaker 11: it's hard evidence that Congress or someone can obtain that
Speaker 11: would shed light on what really happened on the events running.
Speaker 6: Up to nine to eleven.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean set this is where I just come in,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm just like, are we sure it
Speaker 2: hasn't just been destroyed at this point? I mean, so
Speaker 2: much was hidden from the nine to eleven Commission. We
Speaker 2: have basically known the contours of all of this since
Speaker 2: two thousand and two. It's been absolutely not only covered up,
Speaker 2: but many of the initial investigations by Congress, they frankly
Speaker 2: just failed.
Speaker 3: I mean many of them had the broad.
Speaker 2: Contours of what was going on, and you know, in
Speaker 2: the midst of Iraq and sanity and all that, basically
Speaker 2: just let it go. And now finally, you know, in
Speaker 2: journalists like you is just picking it up. Do you
Speaker 2: think we can ever get to the bottom of this
Speaker 2: even now years later? Will it make it easier or harder?
Speaker 2: Just because so much of the information is probably gone?
Speaker 6: Yeah, the information has gone, but the men or not.
Speaker 11: And I don't think something like this will will stay
Speaker 11: secret forever. It's too big, there's too much blood on
Speaker 11: people's hands or guilt or.
Speaker 6: I don't think it'll stay secret to it forever.
Speaker 11: I think it may be a deathbed confessor who knows
Speaker 11: if this did happen. But you know, I believe that
Speaker 11: information eventually comes out.
Speaker 6: It just takes time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, Seth, great job reporting on this. I really
Speaker 1: recommend people go and read through the entire piece, which
Speaker 1: I think lays out the evidence and very compelling detail. Again,
Speaker 1: it's over at the Substack Spy Talk, which I also
Speaker 1: would recommend to folks. And we're really grateful for your
Speaker 1: time for laying this out for our audience to understand.
Speaker 3: That's right. Thank you so much, We really appreciate it.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: That's a pleasure.
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