Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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Speaker 3: Coverage that is possible.
Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means
Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support.
Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.
Speaker 2: Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday.
Speaker 3: We have an amazing show for everybody.
Speaker 2: Did we do?
Speaker 3: It's another bro show.
Speaker 2: There we go sad circumstances because one of Crystal's kids
Speaker 2: is sick, but she will be back. She says that
Speaker 2: one of our kids is on the mend and the
Speaker 2: well is looking so don't worry about it. But we're
Speaker 2: going to give her all the time that she needs.
Speaker 2: And we thank you all for some of the messages
Speaker 2: that you guys sent in. But before we get to that,
Speaker 2: man were setting up these stories is tough, especially on
Speaker 2: a day like today.
Speaker 3: We have so many things to go over.
Speaker 2: Ryan and I. Number one, We're going to start with
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty four race. We're going to go over
Speaker 2: since things look like where they're trending for the general election.
Speaker 2: Biden and Trump, we've known that for a while. We're
Speaker 2: going to look at some of the things that are
Speaker 2: good for Biden, some of the things that are bad
Speaker 2: for Biden, same with Trump and vice versa. Also some
Speaker 2: breaking news yesterday, the Texas governor appears to be kind
Speaker 2: of putting his middle finger in the face of President
Speaker 2: Biden and the Supreme Court after being ordered to take
Speaker 2: down some razor wire at the US southern border. This
Speaker 2: is setting up a possible confrontation with the federal government.
Speaker 2: Lots of Republican governors backing up Governor Abbott, and this
Speaker 2: certainly could be a major story. On top of what's
Speaker 2: going on with the border crisis continuing. We're also Ryan
Speaker 2: and I going to break down some of what's happening
Speaker 2: with the hoo thies and continuing war in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Biden administration continues to say we're not at war in
Speaker 2: the Middle East. We just happened to bomb three countries
Speaker 2: in a single day. Boeing, You guys know, I love
Speaker 2: airline stories and everything to do with that. Boeing, the
Speaker 2: manufacturing crisis and more is just getting way worse for them,
Speaker 2: Alaska Airlines CEO saying they found multiple doors with loose plugs,
Speaker 2: and we have confirmation now from the Seattle Times that
Speaker 2: it was in fact Boeing's fault for misinstalling that door.
Speaker 2: We're also going to talk about zen nicotine subject near
Speaker 2: and dear to my own heart here, Ryan, and we're
Speaker 2: going to talk about Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader.
Speaker 3: He wants to ban zen pouches and nicotine.
Speaker 2: Interesting. He came for four Loco first and now he's
Speaker 2: coming for this. And then John Stewart. John Stewart is
Speaker 2: returning to the Daily Show. He'll be the executive producer
Speaker 2: there and it'll be hosting the show on Monday, trying
Speaker 2: to rescue the corpse from what Trevor Noah has left behind.
Speaker 2: And then finally, Emily cop is going to be joining
Speaker 2: us actually in the studio. She is a phenomenal reporter
Speaker 2: at the right. Is it right to do us right
Speaker 2: to know?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I've used some of her work here in the past.
Speaker 2: It's about lab leek. Why don't you tell us?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think reasonable debate on this question around COVID
Speaker 4: origins is over as a result, Yes, of her latest reporting,
Speaker 4: which comes from a bunch of Foya documents that she
Speaker 4: pulled up without teasing too much of it. It's shut.
Speaker 4: This is it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, case is the case. It's the case is closed.
Speaker 2: It's been closed for a while in my mind. But
Speaker 2: Emily is the one who gave us the evidence. So
Speaker 2: we're going to talk to her, and you know, again,
Speaker 2: I want to give total accolades. She has been an
Speaker 2: absolute warrior on the subject now for a long time.
Speaker 2: But let's go in and begin with the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four race. Where do things stand exactly? I have been
Speaker 2: keeping my eye ryan on the Biden HQ website and
Speaker 2: on their Twitter page in particular, because this has given
Speaker 2: us a real preview and how the Biden administration is
Speaker 2: going to be campaigning. And over and over again we
Speaker 2: see a consistent theme. Abortion, abortion, row, brow bro. That's
Speaker 2: all they want to talk about, and for good reason,
Speaker 2: it seems to be the best, single electoral thing that
Speaker 2: they have for them. Here was President Biden just a
Speaker 2: few days ago in one of a major campaign speech.
Speaker 3: Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 5: Listen to what he says.
Speaker 6: Trump says he's proud that he overturned Roby Wade. He said,
Speaker 6: and I quote, there has to be punishment for the
Speaker 6: woman exercising the reproductive freedom. He describes the job's decision
Speaker 6: as a miracle, but for American women, it's a nightmare.
Speaker 6: So let's be absolutely clear what Trump is bragging about.
Speaker 7: The reason there are twenty one states where abortion bands
Speaker 7: are in effect May with no exception for rape or
Speaker 7: any other or ancest is Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: There you go, so you can see a preview of
Speaker 2: where things are going. At the same time, President Biden
Speaker 2: got a pretty good lift yesterday, Ryan, he got the
Speaker 2: endorsement of the United Auto Worker Sean Fayne, who we've
Speaker 2: covered a lot here on the show from his time
Speaker 2: at the strike. He actually delivered that endorsement yesterday. Let's
Speaker 2: take a listen.
Speaker 8: Now, here's what Trump did to help the American auto
Speaker 8: worker in our twenty twenty three historic stand up strike.
Speaker 8: Now that he's running for president. He went to a
Speaker 8: non union plant inbided by the boss and trashed our union.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 8: And here is what Joe Biden did during.
Speaker 4: Our state up strike.
Speaker 8: He heard the call and he stood up and he
Speaker 8: showed up. So that's a choice we face. It's not
Speaker 8: about who you like, it's not about your party. It's
Speaker 8: not this bullshit about age. It's not about anything but
Speaker 8: our best shot at taking back power for the working class.
Speaker 2: All right, Ryan, So abortion and unions, Normally I would say, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's pretty potent. At the same time, the bullshit about age,
Speaker 2: I'm not so sure that, mister Fine should be. Let
Speaker 2: me ask you this, if you would you want Joe
Speaker 2: Biden UAW members, would you want him on the line
Speaker 2: next to you or would you want him well into
Speaker 2: his pension and to his retirement which you.
Speaker 3: Fought very, very hard for your more recent deal.
Speaker 4: UAWS are no different than the rest of Americans in
Speaker 4: nessents that they don't get a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, Buden or Trumps and both both of these
Speaker 4: rallies are actually useful windows into the other problem that
Speaker 4: Biden has, because both of them were disrupted by protests.
Speaker 3: Oh my Gaza over ceasefire.
Speaker 4: My colleague Prem Tucker over at the Intercept has a
Speaker 4: good piece on how there was a lot of dissent
Speaker 4: within the UAW about the timing of this endorsement that
Speaker 4: they wanted that the UAW has come out for a ceasefire,
Speaker 4: and there were people inside the UAW, who are saying,
Speaker 4: get the UAW back to it's sixties and seventies roots
Speaker 4: of being a kind of vehicle for social justice. Broadly,
Speaker 4: UAW sponsored the Marshall Washington for instance, like they're the
Speaker 4: ones that financed Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech,
Speaker 4: and that has been that has been something that has
Speaker 4: been near and dear to their legacy for decades now.
Speaker 4: And there was a major disruption at the at the
Speaker 4: endorsement ceremony where the UAW protest UAW members protesting the
Speaker 4: president over Gaza at his speechman Asss where you know,
Speaker 4: the centerpiece of it was abortion rights. Again, you had
Speaker 4: endless disruptions from the audience protesting his support for unconditional
Speaker 4: support for Israel's war on Gaza. And so what it's
Speaker 4: showing is that he can't really go anywhere, you know,
Speaker 4: for the for the next year, unless he can get
Speaker 4: to some type of resolution or they put in a
Speaker 4: different candidate who's not so closely associated with And what
Speaker 4: kills so many progressives is that it's true he was
Speaker 4: the first president to join a picket line. Sean Fain,
Speaker 4: there's a kind of that's my president vibe that he
Speaker 4: has and maybe he will be your president right one
Speaker 4: day down the line. He did. He did join Faine
Speaker 4: on the picket line. They did win a historic contract.
Speaker 4: And it is true that abortion is on the bout,
Speaker 4: Like all of these things are true, but they're being
Speaker 4: stained by the blood of so many innocent Palestiniam.
Speaker 2: Glad that you put it that way, because that's like
Speaker 2: the dichotomy of Biden. And also even with the Union
Speaker 2: Front wanted to make sure that we flag this. Faine
Speaker 2: actually in his speech even was like, look, some people
Speaker 2: are not going to Overbiden. Some he's like, and many
Speaker 2: people even admitted, don't forget this. Some forty percent of
Speaker 2: Union households went from Trump in twenty sixteen. I don't
Speaker 2: know the exact numbers for twenty twenty. I was struck
Speaker 2: by Sean O'Brien, who we've actually had here on the show.
Speaker 2: He's the president of the Teamsters Union. He was actually
Speaker 2: on Fox News yesterday and he said, listen, you know,
Speaker 2: we've invited Trump. We want to come meet with him,
Speaker 2: and I think that demonstrates where some of his base
Speaker 2: actually was.
Speaker 3: He said a little bit of this yesterday. Let's take
Speaker 3: a listen.
Speaker 9: So we met with Donald Trump two weeks ago, and
Speaker 9: we are meeting with our general executive Board and rank
Speaker 9: and file members at the Teamster headquarters on January thirty.
Speaker 2: First.
Speaker 9: We've extended the invitation to President Biden. We're talking to
Speaker 9: the White House now to try and schedule both on
Speaker 9: the same day. And we think it's important that we're
Speaker 9: meeting with all candidates. We have a very diverse membership
Speaker 9: one point three million members, so we owe it to
Speaker 9: our members to do due diligence and make the recommendation
Speaker 9: what's in the best interest of teams to members nationwide.
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 3: So he's invited President Trump.
Speaker 2: I mean, he hasn't endorsed him per se or any
Speaker 2: of that, But I mean, I look, I always think
Speaker 2: that these union guys have a much better pulse of
Speaker 2: politics because they got real memberships that they got to
Speaker 2: deal with, you know, they got to get reelected, they
Speaker 2: got to make sure that their constituentsy are satisfied. Look,
Speaker 2: most likely he's gonna endorse by it. But the whole
Speaker 2: point is that even even inviting Trump there, I mean,
Speaker 2: in a certain way, Sean Faine has been a little
Speaker 2: bit more partisan on that, but Faine, like I said
Speaker 2: in the speech, is still realistic that he's like, look,
Speaker 2: not everybody is going to spore by it, right.
Speaker 3: Some people are going to spot Trump, right.
Speaker 4: And and the way that it went down with with
Speaker 4: Trump and the strike with with Trump going out and
Speaker 4: speaking to a non union crowd and invited literally by
Speaker 4: literal management, Uh, you know, didn't didn't leave Faine whole
Speaker 4: lot of choice. Although the UAW certainly didn't make it
Speaker 4: easy for Trump to come address Like it wasn't as
Speaker 4: if Trump really had he could have dropped in on
Speaker 4: a picket line and that that could have been interesting.
Speaker 4: But it wasn't like the UAW leadership was gonna make
Speaker 4: it easy for Trump to show his show his support. Uh,
Speaker 4: O'Brien is is following in the footsteps of this like
Speaker 4: one hundred year union legacy of pushing for support from
Speaker 4: both parties. Because whoever is in the White House, you know,
Speaker 4: working people are going to have interests that they're gonna
Speaker 4: that they're going to want to, you know, push any
Speaker 4: particular White House, whether it's Trump or somebody else. So
Speaker 4: by by keeping those doors open, you know, that can
Speaker 4: be useful to teamsters. The Teamsters members themselves. The best
Speaker 4: thing perhaps that we have about Biden is the n
Speaker 4: l RB. His appointments to the NLRB have been consistently
Speaker 4: maybe the most pro worker in the agency's history. Uh.
Speaker 4: Whereas the Republicans on the NLRB continue to vote with bosses,
Speaker 4: with management against workers. And so there is a push
Speaker 4: from people like Hawley and others in the Republican Party
Speaker 4: to create a kind of worker uni party so that
Speaker 4: there is there is power when it comes to the FTC,
Speaker 4: the FCC, the nl RB, other agencies that you've got
Speaker 4: kind of wholly populist right pro worker Republicans who become
Speaker 4: commissioners on these boards, right, and then you've got democratic
Speaker 4: pro worker boards because for forty years, the corporate bosses
Speaker 4: had the opposite. No matter who was in the White House,
Speaker 4: corporate in America was able to pick who ran these
Speaker 4: administrative states. So there's a war over the administrative state.
Speaker 4: And O'Brien kind of being friendly with Trump can help
Speaker 4: grease some of that.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely true. And that's the thing I mean Trump,
Speaker 2: you know, we shouldn't forget he played foot set rhetorically.
Speaker 2: Unions in generally basically just didn't pay attention to it
Speaker 2: while he was in the White House, but maybe it's
Speaker 2: very possible you get actually this time around. Returning to abortion,
Speaker 2: one sign again that this is just going to be
Speaker 2: front and center for the Biden campaign. Let's go and
Speaker 2: put this one up there on the screen. Kate Cox,
Speaker 2: who you will remember we actually covered her here on
Speaker 2: the show, the Texas mother who experienced like that nightmare
Speaker 2: situation where you know, because of the abortion law, was
Speaker 2: not able to get an abortion even though you know,
Speaker 2: she what was it, Her fetus was diagnosed with something.
Speaker 4: It was like completely it was a it wasternal diagnosis,
Speaker 4: and they're like, no, we're not doing anything until it dies,
Speaker 4: which you at extreme risk because you could you could
Speaker 4: die from an infection, like you have to get you
Speaker 4: have to get that treated immediately, you know, if a
Speaker 4: fetus dies inside of you, and they're like no, yeah,
Speaker 4: you just wait until then and you could get stepsis
Speaker 4: and die as a results. So she eventually had to leave.
Speaker 2: This shit, She left the state. She became kind of
Speaker 2: a national figure because of the story because she especially
Speaker 2: I believe she was already a mother. She'd like wanted
Speaker 2: another baby, and so she's kind of that protop right
Speaker 2: exactly for a lot of people in the pro choice
Speaker 2: movement kind of the effects of this. I know the
Speaker 2: pro lifers were arguing and they were like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: not theoretically, technically, you know that the diagnosis doesn't necessarily
Speaker 2: mean what it means. I'm not going to sit here
Speaker 2: and litigate, you know, medical conditions of a twenty first
Speaker 2: week fetus, but I will say, you know, politically, I
Speaker 2: think we've seen enough data to know where this bears out,
Speaker 2: and I think it's probably a smart move on behalf
Speaker 2: of the Biden administration. She will be joining Joe Biden
Speaker 2: at this d of the Union. We will be doing
Speaker 2: live coverage here of the State of the Union. And
Speaker 2: you know, the State of the Union right before the
Speaker 2: election is always a vehicle for the presidential campaign. If
Speaker 2: we think back to Trump in the twenty nineteen presidential
Speaker 2: State of the Union, it was the exact same thing.
Speaker 2: It was about the immigration, it was anti impeachment some
Speaker 2: of that was going on, and a lot of it
Speaker 2: was about the economy, about low interest rates, etc. So
Speaker 2: these are always a good way to look at things
Speaker 2: now in terms of the election. Something we flagged yesterday
Speaker 2: we want to make sure again everybody takes away is
Speaker 2: that while Trump definitely won, and he won by double digits,
Speaker 2: there's some troubling data for him, and even in the
Speaker 2: GOP poll. So let's put this up there. Steve Kornaki
Speaker 2: flag this. We have never seen a gap he says,
Speaker 2: between the independent vote and the Republican vote in the
Speaker 2: New Hampshire GOP primary, like we saw in the New
Speaker 2: Hampshire primary of tuesday. Trump won Republicans by forty nine points,
Speaker 2: but Nikki Haley took independence by twenty two points. That
Speaker 2: is a swing of seventy one. The previous high on
Speaker 2: that was forty points. So I just think we all
Speaker 2: need to pause and maybe just think a little bit
Speaker 2: about the fact that Nikki Haley was able to dramatically
Speaker 2: win over these independent voters such that we could view
Speaker 2: her as a vehicle as we saw here before Ryan,
Speaker 2: how many clips did we play of Haley voters be
Speaker 2: like on voting for Biden. So if that's a preview
Speaker 2: of things to come, well, you know, an independent voter
Speaker 2: or others who were so critical in the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: two midterms, a lot of them swung Democrat. They don't
Speaker 2: even like the Democrats, they're not particularly pro Biden or
Speaker 2: any of that, but they genuinely are so repulsed both
Speaker 2: by stop the Steal and by abortion that they're willing
Speaker 2: to come out and to vote. And there's something very
Speaker 2: interesting there where it's look, I think if you just
Speaker 2: live your life in online circles, you know, it's hard
Speaker 2: to put your finger on that, but we always need
Speaker 2: to remember, even even the people who watched the show,
Speaker 2: the vast majority of the people who watched the show,
Speaker 2: you're just not you know, on average, you are not
Speaker 2: one of the deciding votes. Whenever it comes to the election,
Speaker 2: I know who you're voting for, not even even if
Speaker 2: you know here're voting for. I'm talking about the median voter.
Speaker 2: Median is like fifty five years old and doesn't have
Speaker 2: a college degree. Just think about that. I mean, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: There's so much older than the vast majority of people
Speaker 2: who consume content online. And the fact is that young voters. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, they can think affect things on the margins,
Speaker 2: but in general.
Speaker 4: Like you, people don't vote.
Speaker 2: And when you don't vote, it's like, well then your
Speaker 2: voice is not going to be heard. And the election
Speaker 2: is going to be decided by people who are way
Speaker 2: older than you and consume very different media than you.
Speaker 2: I think that's another critical point I want to put it.
Speaker 4: If I were going to try to offer Trump some cope,
Speaker 4: you would say, all right, well, a lot of those
Speaker 4: nicky Haley people were actual Democrats, right, they're Democrats anyway,
Speaker 4: who became undeclared just so they could mess in the primary.
Speaker 4: But having covered so many elections, it is extremely rare
Speaker 4: that shenanigans like that move things beyond on the margins,
Speaker 4: and so you anytime you try to explain things with shenanigans,
Speaker 4: you're probably going to outsmart yourself. And so you're probably
Speaker 4: seeing what you think you're seeing, which is that a
Speaker 4: lot of independence. And even if you take ten twenty
Speaker 4: percent of the and move them aside because they were
Speaker 4: just the nineteen year old Democrat who voted in the primary,
Speaker 4: you're still talking a fifty point swing, which is which
Speaker 4: we've never seen before as somebody who wins in a
Speaker 4: blowout fashion double digits like that in New Hampshire usually
Speaker 4: is it going to be at least even yes, or
Speaker 4: winning with independence not getting crushed with independence?
Speaker 2: The final piece of data. I want everybody to take
Speaker 2: away from this is that things are both looking good
Speaker 2: and bad for Biden. So this is why we're putting
Speaker 2: these two things together. Put this up here. So you know,
Speaker 2: just yesterday we saw a new poll Susquehanna decent pole
Speaker 2: out of the state of Pennsylvania, decent sample size and
Speaker 2: all of that, and what do they find. Biden forty
Speaker 2: six point eight percent, Trump thirty nine point three, not
Speaker 2: sure at seven point six, and other at five point six.
Speaker 2: So you know, we've got some undecideds there enough, you know,
Speaker 2: if they all went Trump to put him over the edge.
Speaker 2: And he definitely did compete in the state pretty well
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty and obviously won the state back in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, and you should never count him out, especially
Speaker 2: I think in the industrial Midwest in general. The K
Speaker 2: and S rule was to add five to a Trump
Speaker 2: number in any of these regions. But here's the thing.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, the K and S rule was reversed.
Speaker 2: You actually should minus five for Republicans. So that's one
Speaker 2: of those where that's why it's not really a rule,
Speaker 2: it's more of a vibe. And you know, for these
Speaker 2: it's just you used to say, I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't know. You could really read things two ways. So
Speaker 2: I would look at this and be like, man, you know, Biden,
Speaker 2: I'm feeling pretty good. But then let's put the next
Speaker 2: one hair up on the screen. How popular is Joe Biden. Well,
Speaker 2: he's got a fifty five seven percent disapproval rating and
Speaker 2: a thirty eight point eight percent approval rating. That's putting
Speaker 2: him in Jimmy Carter territory going into the general election.
Speaker 2: He's got a seventeen point spread between disapprove and approve.
Speaker 2: He's been unpopular now for years, for the vast majority of.
Speaker 3: His short presidency.
Speaker 2: He only was really popular for a year, and as
Speaker 2: you could see from that trend line, things did not
Speaker 2: go well for him.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 2: October twenty twenty one really is I think, just such
Speaker 2: a turning point for the Biden presidency because it's the
Speaker 2: chaos of Afghanistan. And by the way, supported Afghanistan. I
Speaker 2: actually supported withdrawal, but let's be real politically, it was
Speaker 2: a disaster. Let's all just be honest about that. Media
Speaker 2: bears responsibility, but Biden does too, you know, just for
Speaker 2: the total chaos. But on top of that that was,
Speaker 2: you know, that was in the midst of like vax craziness,
Speaker 2: COVID craziness, delta variance of diapers, ninety percent inflation is
Speaker 2: just never recovered from that. So I could look at
Speaker 2: this thing truly two ways, the twenty twenty two data,
Speaker 2: I'd be like, Okay, I would not feel great.
Speaker 3: If I was Biden, I would feel okay.
Speaker 2: And then I could look at it the other way
Speaker 2: and in any traditional metric with the economy where it
Speaker 2: is and everything else, and I'd say, Man, you know,
Speaker 2: Biden is going to get you know, absolutely creamed in
Speaker 2: the election. So it's one of those where we're going
Speaker 2: to continue to try and present this case. I just
Speaker 2: encourage everyone, like, don't live in a bubble and try
Speaker 2: to look at contravening data and just mess with it
Speaker 2: in your head. Don't have to draw a conclusion of
Speaker 2: either or just anything could happen. That's my main takeaway.
Speaker 4: What's what's been so interesting to see is that consumer
Speaker 4: confidence and people feelings about the economy have absolutely exploded
Speaker 4: in the last two months.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's see the last three months in particular.
Speaker 4: You're seeing the biggest swings in an upward direction. Perhaps
Speaker 4: then you've seen like since they started looking at the data,
Speaker 4: and so if that continues, that's extremely helpful for Biden
Speaker 4: because then you would have a year of people feeling
Speaker 4: good about the economy and which could be enough time
Speaker 4: for a lot of people to recover a lot of
Speaker 4: what they lost through inflation and the precarity of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one. Yeah. So yeah, it's this is a wide
Speaker 4: open race, even though both people ought to lose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely, I've said that. You know, it's pathetic
Speaker 2: that either has a fifty percentage, and yet that's the situation.
Speaker 2: Immigration top issue in New Hampshire for Republican voters, top
Speaker 2: issue in Iowa. Huge, if you're watching and consuming any
Speaker 2: conservative media, this is it number one. And if you
Speaker 2: were looking at GOP voters and others, if you want
Speaker 2: to se like the main reason people are going to
Speaker 2: vote Trump, this is the issue. And now we are
Speaker 2: seeing a major standoff. You guys did a great job
Speaker 2: yesterday of covering the Supreme Court case, but there's been
Speaker 2: some major development now since, which is after the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court issued in order where they said that Texas officials
Speaker 2: cannot obstruct federal what is it Federal Border Patrol agents
Speaker 2: from cutting the wire. They have now began actually putting
Speaker 2: even more razor wire at that border crossing, which has
Speaker 2: now become like a critical juncture. Now I was explaining
Speaker 2: this to you Ryan people, are you know, many people,
Speaker 2: including the Texas governor are showing, you know, they're making
Speaker 2: this a big show, many GOP governors joining them as well,
Speaker 2: being like that's right, Like he's defying the law technically.
Speaker 2: And I asked some of my Republican lawyer friends, I said, Okay,
Speaker 2: what's going on here?
Speaker 3: So the technical explanation is this.
Speaker 2: The court order says, well, you can't obstruct the FEDS
Speaker 2: from cutting the wire, but that doesn't mean you can't
Speaker 2: put up a ton more wire. So there's definitely a
Speaker 2: little bit of a loophole. It's certain, you know, almost
Speaker 2: certain the Biden administration they either may challenge us in court,
Speaker 2: they could send the FEDS and the mill. They could
Speaker 2: try and federalize the Texas National Guard which is putting
Speaker 2: this up. They're all kinds of very interesting possibilities. Jorge Venturo,
Speaker 2: he's a great reporter over at News Nation, actually did
Speaker 2: a segment of showing how the Texas officials actually putting
Speaker 2: up even more razor wire after the decision yesterday.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to some of his report.
Speaker 11: Texas officials say they are going to hold the line
Speaker 11: and double down on their operations to side Shelby Park. Actually,
Speaker 11: right now we're waiting to see Texas officials installing even
Speaker 11: more of that razor wire and anti timing fencing.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 5: The reason why they're installing some of that razor wire
Speaker 5: and fencing on top of the shipping containers is we
Speaker 5: have witnessed several migrants went on top of the shipping
Speaker 5: containers and entering Shelby Park illegally that way, Texas officials
Speaker 5: say they're going to continue to beef up security here.
Speaker 5: As of right now, federal agents are still not allowed
Speaker 5: and shall be parked.
Speaker 2: We take a look at the sea, don't we Here.
Speaker 5: We're actually waiting scene right now migrants have actually been.
Speaker 4: Blocked by that razor wire. They say they've been here
Speaker 4: for at least two days.
Speaker 5: Here we have three migrants from Venezuela who cannot enter
Speaker 5: Shelby Parking. So this is exactly what the state of
Speaker 5: Texas is trying to do.
Speaker 2: So that was a important view kind of into the
Speaker 2: whole standoff. I know you guys covered it a little
Speaker 2: bit yesterday, but I think the background on all of
Speaker 2: this is, obviously we've had between six and eight million
Speaker 2: people cross the border illegally since Biden took office. This
Speaker 2: has led to massive debates about catch and release, about
Speaker 2: the remain in Mexico policy, about our asylum laws. We
Speaker 2: could probably do an entire episode just on the background
Speaker 2: of this, but the main political issue is that the
Speaker 2: scenes of just like millions of people coming across, I
Speaker 2: think everyone can just agree like this is not an
Speaker 2: orderly process. Yeah, And that's where I think the Biden
Speaker 2: administration suffers is that there have not been three years
Speaker 2: now in a policy that they have been able to
Speaker 2: find other than the original Trump policy, which was just
Speaker 2: straight up remain in Mexico, meaning you have to apply
Speaker 2: for asylum there and then if you're adjudicated and improved
Speaker 2: you can enter where if you were trying to and
Speaker 2: you are allowing people basically to enter the border and
Speaker 2: you're doing it even crossing illegally, but then declaring asylum
Speaker 2: and then try to adjudicate that here if you're not
Speaker 2: going to hold them in some sort of detention center.
Speaker 2: Catch and release is the inevitable outcome, and there's varying
Speaker 2: data people like to put. Liberals like to say that
Speaker 2: there's a ninety percent show uprate to the first court hearing.
Speaker 2: Conservatives are like, yeah, but what about the final court
Speaker 2: hearing whenever they lose their asylum claim. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of adjudication over asylum itself. But overall, Ryan, I think
Speaker 2: this is a sleeper, potent issue, and I have not
Speaker 2: seen the mainstream media actually catch up to it yet.
Speaker 2: I've seen I saw coverage of the Scotus ruling, but
Speaker 2: this particular one with the Governor Abbot basically saying I'm
Speaker 2: going to defy this, I have not seen it yet.
Speaker 2: Before we get into Governor Abbot's statements, do you have
Speaker 2: anything you want to go into, just.
Speaker 4: That it's fascinating, how like you said, little of an issue.
Speaker 4: This is both among the mainstream media but also among
Speaker 4: Democrats democratic voters.
Speaker 3: They're si to pretend they're like, don't care, right, it's
Speaker 3: very odd.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you'll if they see some images at the border,
Speaker 4: they might say, oh, that doesn't look great, right, not
Speaker 4: very rational, but it's but they're not going to spend
Speaker 4: any political capital on it. They're not gonna They're not
Speaker 4: going to criticize Biden. They're in such a difficult jam
Speaker 4: because they're they're kind of ethics around immigration were forged
Speaker 4: in the Trump years, and they took I think some
Speaker 4: positions because they were anti Trump that they don't actually hold.
Speaker 4: You know, they became far more kind of pro immigrant
Speaker 4: and pro immigration than a lot of their kind of
Speaker 4: a yeah, let's be real are but they were driven
Speaker 4: by animates towards Trump, and so with Trump gone, now
Speaker 4: they're like, we actually are not that pro immigrant. Yeah,
Speaker 4: well but now we're kind of stuck because we have
Speaker 4: signs in our yard.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and I think a lot of them are behold
Speaker 2: into a lot of these immigration groups. You know, I
Speaker 2: maintained the literal most genius move that these governors did
Speaker 2: was all right, you guys are sanctuary cities. We're just
Speaker 2: gonna ship them to you. Guys can deal with it.
Speaker 2: You have all these laws right to shelter, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And now all of a sudden you've got Long Island
Speaker 2: Republicans and know they're sounding like people down in Texas,
Speaker 2: They're like this is crazy. They're taking our our housing
Speaker 2: and you got people's sleeping Boston Airport, and I mean
Speaker 2: the clips on this stuff.
Speaker 3: I cannot emphasize.
Speaker 2: This is enough go viral in the right on such
Speaker 2: a level that to a certain point other than those
Speaker 2: who are dealing with this, like in Chicago, you know,
Speaker 2: California and New York, they are living people like Democrats
Speaker 2: and Republicans are living in a different reality. But this
Speaker 2: is one of those I think reality forcing events, specifically
Speaker 2: because it might lead to confrontation between the state of
Speaker 2: Texas and the federal government. So Texas Governor Abbott put
Speaker 2: out a statement yesterday, let's put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen, and can we bring our nice little highlight
Speaker 2: function there and I'm going to read this. He says.
Speaker 2: President Biden has violated his oath to faithfully execute immigration
Speaker 2: laws enacted by Congress. Instead of prosecuting immigrants for the
Speaker 2: federal crime of illegal entry, President Biden has sent lawyers
Speaker 2: into federal courts to sue Texas for taking action to
Speaker 2: secure the border. President Biden has instructed his agencies to
Speaker 2: ignore federal statutes that mandate detention of illegal immigrants. The
Speaker 2: effect is to illegally allow their end mass parole into
Speaker 2: the United States by waste seeing taxpayer dollars to tear
Speaker 2: open Texas border security infrastructure. President Biden has enticed illegal
Speaker 2: immigrants away from the twenty eight legal entry points along
Speaker 2: the state's southern border bridges where nobody drowns, and into
Speaker 2: the dangerous waters of the Rio Grand Let's go to
Speaker 2: the next one, please, because this is an important pullout,
Speaker 2: they say, for these reasons, I have already declared an
Speaker 2: invasion under Article one ten, Clause three, to invoke Texas's
Speaker 2: constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. Now, as I said,
Speaker 2: all of this is being framed by the Texas governor
Speaker 2: and by DeSantis. You know, even Governor Young Cain backed
Speaker 2: them up. They're like, hey's standing up to President Biden.
Speaker 2: I want to be very clear, they're not in violation
Speaker 2: of the Supreme Court agreement, are they sup Court ruling?
Speaker 2: The loophole is as long as you don't obstruct the
Speaker 2: Feds from cutting the wire, you can still keep putting
Speaker 2: up wire. Now will the Feds take them to court
Speaker 2: and say, hey, you need to stop. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I mean, that seems politically pretty nuts on their part,
Speaker 2: but you know, it's one of those where they're in
Speaker 2: a major standoff because border according and let me give
Speaker 2: the Biden case. The Biden case here is that the
Speaker 2: border patrol needs secure access to all points along the border.
Speaker 2: That's their case.
Speaker 3: The border Constitution gives the yeah, yeah, gives.
Speaker 2: The Constitution gives the federal government and the authority in
Speaker 2: order to take control and to have you know, supreme
Speaker 2: supreme governance over border policy, even if you should disagree
Speaker 2: with it. Texas is like, no, this obviously this is
Speaker 2: our border state border in the Constitution, they have the
Speaker 2: ability to invoke that invasion clause, which is one that
Speaker 2: goes back a long time. You're speaking to a native
Speaker 2: Texas here, and you know, we take it very seriously.
Speaker 2: The ability, you know, the whole what was it Jade
Speaker 2: Helm or whatever during Obama and all of that invoking
Speaker 2: the Texas or in you know, bringing up the Texas
Speaker 2: National Guard to guard against Obama and the federal government.
Speaker 2: This is deep within our DNA. My only point just
Speaker 2: being that at that time that was definitely political. This time,
Speaker 2: I think this is and I think political in the
Speaker 2: wrong way. Maybe good for Texas at the time, but
Speaker 2: not nationally this time, because it's a forcing function to
Speaker 2: get them, media and others to grapple with it. I
Speaker 2: think they're in a tough spot because effectively, what the
Speaker 2: Biden administration is saying is if they do challenge this
Speaker 2: is they're like, no, we need more unfettered access for
Speaker 2: people to be able to cross the border. The Biden administration,
Speaker 2: they're not stupid, they know this is a huge problem
Speaker 2: for them. But the groups, obviously these immigration groups and
Speaker 2: others are the ones who are like, no, you need
Speaker 2: to go through. I've seen people like Beto O'Rourke and
Speaker 2: other Texas Democrats saying, you know, the federal government should
Speaker 2: go in there and cut the wire. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like it's one of those where I just think politically,
Speaker 2: given where national sentiment is on this and immigration is
Speaker 2: the number one issue where Biden loses amongst the general
Speaker 2: public and amongst independence, he's in a tough spot with
Speaker 2: this case. And as long as that, as long as
Speaker 2: Texas and all of them are, you know, whatever in
Speaker 2: the spirit violating the spirit but not the letter of
Speaker 2: the law, I think they're coming out on top in
Speaker 2: this debate.
Speaker 4: Ryan, Yeah, there's no better kind of epitome of our
Speaker 4: failed immigration policy than if you had a bunch of
Speaker 4: Texas Rangers laying down razor wire followed by a bunch
Speaker 4: of CVP guys cutting it right behind him, what is happening?
Speaker 4: And then behind them is a bunch of rangers laying
Speaker 4: more down. You've got hundreds of guys just fighting over
Speaker 4: razor wire, and then you've got immigration crisis around.
Speaker 2: Around the rest of a bunch of patients in Venezuelans
Speaker 2: and Somali's being like, hey, can I come and.
Speaker 4: With no with a system does the last updated in
Speaker 4: the nineteen eighties, and what we are immigration policy now
Speaker 4: is depending on who's in the White House. They just
Speaker 4: execute it like wildly differently and then fight about it
Speaker 4: in the courts until they're thrown out of office and
Speaker 4: somebody else comes in.
Speaker 2: It is really unfortunate, actually, because any serious effort to
Speaker 2: try and do anything about this has been killed basically
Speaker 2: left and right, and even the Biden administration.
Speaker 3: I mean, they just, you know, they look ridiculous. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they just look ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And John Kirby, we're gonna put this, you know, we
Speaker 2: can play some of this when he's asked about the
Speaker 2: razor wire. These people are like twisting themselves into knots
Speaker 2: literally to try and to defend the policy of which
Speaker 2: currently stands and which you know they're trying to stand
Speaker 2: up to Texas, but then they're also not trying to
Speaker 2: endorse like completely open border.
Speaker 3: Let's take a listen to what they said.
Speaker 4: Does Razor wire work?
Speaker 12: Does Razor wire work for what?
Speaker 2: Does it work for the border patrol to allow them
Speaker 2: to have the access they need to be able to
Speaker 2: to better process people that are trying to get across
Speaker 2: the border. I don't think so, and that's why we
Speaker 2: asked for it to be removed.
Speaker 4: So yeah, there you go. It's like work for what.
Speaker 3: But the problem that Trump was asked if the air
Speaker 3: strikes are working exactly, it's a problem that they have
Speaker 3: proms blow up, right.
Speaker 2: The problem that they have is that the Border Patrol
Speaker 2: Union is like, no, we need this, like we actually
Speaker 2: need people to cross in an orderly fashion at the
Speaker 2: legal entry points. That's kind of what's the major stand.
Speaker 3: Ups The migrants would want that too, I'm not so sure.
Speaker 3: I'm not sorry, So that's why a bunch of guys
Speaker 3: waiting on the other side of that.
Speaker 2: But look, maybe I think that the major point is
Speaker 2: this is part of what obscures it as well, this
Speaker 2: razor wire. This is a dent in the issue. All right,
Speaker 2: Like the major problem is, Yeah, you can basically walk
Speaker 2: into this country and be like I fear fear for
Speaker 2: my life, and you can get stay here for like
Speaker 2: two or three years while your case is adjudicated, even
Speaker 2: though you're an economic migrant, and you get a work
Speaker 2: permit from the federal government. Now listen, I think that's
Speaker 2: crazy and I don't think that should be allowed. A
Speaker 2: lot of people, though, they do think that.
Speaker 4: Pretty sure, you don't get a work permit, which creates
Speaker 4: this underclass of well, okay, very it's hard to get
Speaker 4: the work so.
Speaker 2: You can get the work permit. Some people don't get
Speaker 2: the work permit. This also comes to the whole question
Speaker 2: around everify. The Biden administration has been much more liberal
Speaker 2: in terms of and I mean in terms of like,
Speaker 2: oh like handing out Well.
Speaker 3: They give a bunch of Venezuelan's work permits, but it's
Speaker 3: not them.
Speaker 2: There's different legal hard to get minutia that goes into
Speaker 2: this as to whether you have a like a legitimate
Speaker 2: asylum claim. And I know that this is very very difficult,
Speaker 2: and it can also be very emotional because it's like, well, well,
Speaker 2: what qualifies as asylum or not. It's like, if you
Speaker 2: literally are being gunned down by gangs in the street,
Speaker 2: does that qualify of asylum. Some people would say yes.
Speaker 2: I personally would say no, because I would say it's like, listen,
Speaker 2: that's a domestic problem, and that's your issue.
Speaker 3: If you want better government, you guys can deal with
Speaker 3: it in your house.
Speaker 2: Ryan, I'm sure you're about to throw on my face like, well,
Speaker 2: it's your fault that those gangs exist in the first place.
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, you know, yeah, that's technically true. But
Speaker 2: at certain points, like I like, what you can have this? Gyah,
Speaker 2: I've done this so many times.
Speaker 3: It's like I've been sitting here so many times.
Speaker 2: So I mean, I guess what we can come to
Speaker 2: some sort of consensus at least on this is that
Speaker 2: the problem is that the incentive to fix it is
Speaker 2: also very low. And perfect example of this, let's put
Speaker 2: this up there on the screen, is that Mitch mcconnald
Speaker 2: just yesterday told a closed door meeting of Senate Republicans
Speaker 2: that the politics of the border quote has now flipped
Speaker 2: for Republicans casting doubt on the ability for any sort
Speaker 2: of Ukraine border deal. He says, the politics of change,
Speaker 2: and because he says, Trump, who he's referred to now
Speaker 2: as the nominee, wants to run his twenty twenty four
Speaker 2: campaign centered on immigration, and the GOP leader says, we
Speaker 2: don't want to do anything to undermine him, demonstrating.
Speaker 3: I mean and what he means by undermind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because normal people might not understand, yes, that what
Speaker 4: they mean by undermind is implementing their preferred policy.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, so yeah, so I'll give the defense.
Speaker 2: The defense is is that any sort of bipartisan deal
Speaker 2: would undermine the total preferred policy of the Republicans in Trump.
Speaker 2: So why would we compromise now when Trump, the nominee,
Speaker 2: not only wants to run on the issue, but if
Speaker 2: he wins and he can implement his policy. Now, I
Speaker 2: will give you the counters to that. And by the way,
Speaker 2: I do not support the bipartisan immigration deal. I am
Speaker 2: a pretty big border hawk, but I will I do
Speaker 2: live in the reality of the system. And I can
Speaker 2: tell you that when Trump had unified control of Congress
Speaker 2: and he was a president, he also was not able
Speaker 2: a comprehensive border deal done. Those are the facts. I
Speaker 2: just want to be very clear. The issue too, is
Speaker 2: that unless you have a sixty vote majority or whatever
Speaker 2: in the Senate, you're gonna have to go bipartisan there
Speaker 2: no matter what, especially because they're not going to kill
Speaker 2: the filibuster. You're going to do a bipartisan deal now,
Speaker 2: or you're going to do it in the future. More
Speaker 2: likely you just going to do it never because the
Speaker 2: issue actually does work very well politically for most people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm just so used to Democrats coming up with
Speaker 4: excuses for why they can't do things and how they're
Speaker 4: going to do things in the future that whenever I
Speaker 4: hear it from any party, it's like you would rather
Speaker 4: this just be a giant mess than actually than actually
Speaker 4: solve the problem. So if you want to solve the problem,
Speaker 4: and I would tell Republicans, Democrats are flat on their
Speaker 4: back right now. They're ready to trade away the entire store,
Speaker 4: steal it from them, and then if you do take
Speaker 4: power in the future, be even more terrible.
Speaker 2: And as possible.
Speaker 3: I do think it's I do think that that's the
Speaker 3: end of my Republican consultant here.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, thank you. Ryan. I do think that one
Speaker 2: of the major problems for the Republicans in that right
Speaker 2: now was that a large portion I would say half
Speaker 2: or so of the caucus they didn't even want Ukraine
Speaker 2: aid anyways.
Speaker 3: So they're like, why would I compromise with you on
Speaker 3: the border.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to hold you. I don't care about Ukraine.
Speaker 2: I don't care about Ukraine AID. You're the one who
Speaker 2: cares about Ukraine. You're like, I'm sitting here and I'm
Speaker 2: just negotiating on the border. So I think that political
Speaker 2: calculatus behind it was very stupid from the beginning. And
Speaker 2: also what everybody forgets is the Speaker of the House,
Speaker 2: Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson said, I don't care what you
Speaker 2: guys are doing. You either do HR two, which is
Speaker 2: the House Republican bill, or nothing. That's the only thing.
Speaker 4: I would agree to, right because Johnson's already kinda have
Speaker 4: to shovel. He's going to shove a spending bill down
Speaker 4: the right wings throat in the House. He's like, now
Speaker 4: you want me to do something else? They don't like too,
Speaker 4: and they get out of here. So it is that
Speaker 4: funny situation where the Senate likes to operate as if
Speaker 4: the House doesn't exist. Like that's kind of it's almost
Speaker 4: in the constitution that the Senate will pretend the House
Speaker 4: doesn't exist, right, and then they will pass all these
Speaker 4: things and they'll find out the House, it's like.
Speaker 3: Just not interested in playing it along with them.
Speaker 2: My question for you is, how do you think that
Speaker 2: Biden will handle this. Do you think he will escalate
Speaker 2: to the court or do you think because right now
Speaker 2: the media is not paying attention and it's just a
Speaker 2: Republican story, this is not.
Speaker 3: A bad moment for Biden.
Speaker 4: Emily made a really interesting point elevating some reporting that
Speaker 4: it looks like Biden may have cut a deal with Amlo.
Speaker 4: What Biden will try to do is reduce the number
Speaker 4: of images that we're seeing along along the border that
Speaker 4: will damage him politically. One way you do that is
Speaker 4: you work with the Mexican government and say what do
Speaker 4: you need? And there were there were a lot of
Speaker 4: reports that Trump did the same thing that in election years.
Speaker 4: He talked to the Mexican government and either he wants
Speaker 4: a caravan, or he doesn't want a caravan, or you
Speaker 4: know whatever, whatever he can do. The Mexicans do have
Speaker 4: a significant amount of power to you know, block people down,
Speaker 4: you know, from using the train system from down at
Speaker 4: the border, down with Guatemala and otherwise to influence what
Speaker 4: we're seeing at the Mexico US border. So I think
Speaker 4: Trump will do a lot of that because he's got
Speaker 4: that that he has leeway over. That's foreign policy. Pick
Speaker 4: up the phone, am Low, look buddy, now, no, Amlo.
Speaker 4: Then has political decisions he has to make about whether
Speaker 4: or not he wants to do that, or whether or
Speaker 4: not he wants whether or not he wants to and
Speaker 4: how much he wants to anger Trump because you have
Speaker 4: this weird irony that Trump would actually be upset because
Speaker 4: he wants more chaos, yes, at the border, so he
Speaker 4: can complain about the chaos. It's all cynical, top to bottom,
Speaker 4: all the way down. Yeah, it's very both party.
Speaker 3: It's honestly very sad.
Speaker 2: It is. It is actually a tragic situation because you
Speaker 2: know what we're talking about this in politics and all that,
Speaker 2: we're talking about millions of pepieces people's lives. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: a lot of them die actually on the journey. It's
Speaker 2: a very difficult journey. A lot of them, you know,
Speaker 2: children and others.
Speaker 4: It's one of the expos It's just one of the
Speaker 4: biggest things they're going to do in their entire life.
Speaker 4: It's uprooting. It's bad from the place that they were
Speaker 4: born and raised somewhere that they don't.
Speaker 2: Know right, And there's a lot of uncertainty involve which
Speaker 2: why it's not really fair to anybody, both the people
Speaker 2: who live here and the people who are coming here.
Speaker 2: But anyway, the point is is that it ain't getting
Speaker 2: resolved anytime soon. And this is definitely a major standoff,
Speaker 2: and I am very curious to see how the Biden
Speaker 2: adminstration handles if they're going to escalate it or if
Speaker 2: they're just going to let it sit. Kind of where
Speaker 2: things are the current staces is not a terrible situation
Speaker 2: for Biden because look, it's to his benefit that less
Speaker 2: people come in the Texas Governor. I mean, this guy
Speaker 2: like he can write off this for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life. I'm telling you, you know, in terms of
Speaker 2: like this is mobilized the right in a way that
Speaker 2: I haven't seen. Also in a long time, he got
Speaker 2: Governor Youngkin Abbot, every Brian Kemp and all these people
Speaker 2: are like, come on, Governor Abbot, all of this, Abbot's
Speaker 2: going to be a star, you know, in the Republican Party.
Speaker 2: Righting off of something like this. He wants confrontation with
Speaker 2: the FEDS. I wonder if Biden will give it to
Speaker 2: him or not. I don't really think it's in his
Speaker 2: interest either. There is no major, as you said, democratic
Speaker 2: constituencies like no, Joe, go stick it to Graud.
Speaker 4: I don't want to think about it.
Speaker 2: They don't exactly they don't want to think about it.
Speaker 2: They just kind of want the whole thing to go away.
Speaker 2: So we'll see. All right, let's move on to the
Speaker 2: hoo thies. This is one where right, I'm really going
Speaker 2: to rely on you for this. I will just kick
Speaker 2: things off with a really funny clip from the Pentagon
Speaker 2: where Pentagon reporters, who are smart, they're like, hey, so
Speaker 2: are we at war in the Middle East?
Speaker 4: They keep asking them this, yeah, question.
Speaker 3: You guys bomb three countries yesterday, so what's going on?
Speaker 2: And the Pentagon just to continue to be clown itself
Speaker 2: and say, no, we're not at war in the Middle East,
Speaker 2: even though yes, we did bomb three countries yesterday.
Speaker 10: Let's take a lesson, Well, Carlo, we've been working for
Speaker 10: a very long time on regional security and stability, not
Speaker 10: only in the Middle East but around the world. And
Speaker 10: so we'll continue to work very closely with allies and
Speaker 10: partners globally to address tensions in the Middle East. You know,
Speaker 10: since Hamas's attack against Israel, of course, we've been very
Speaker 10: focused on deterrence and on preventing a wider regional conflict,
Speaker 10: and we'll stay focused on that.
Speaker 1: And what about his words on the brink is the
Speaker 1: US on the brink of war right now in the
Speaker 1: Middle East.
Speaker 10: We are not at war in the Middle East. Clearly,
Speaker 10: there are significant tensions in the Middle East, and again
Speaker 10: we're working closely with allies and partners to de escalate
Speaker 10: and reduce those tensions where we can, recognizing the fact
Speaker 10: that you know, others have a vote as well.
Speaker 4: Okay, got it very clear, We're going to keep de
Speaker 4: escalating tensions with these bombs.
Speaker 2: It seems obvious to me he doesn't want to say
Speaker 2: we're at war because legally we're not at war, and
Speaker 2: legally Congress is the one who is supposed to authorize war.
Speaker 4: The best one was on Tuesday, one of the many
Speaker 4: countries that we bombed with Somalia and the AFRICAM put
Speaker 4: out a statement announcing the bombing and said, in an
Speaker 4: act of self defense, Yes, the US forces bombed al
Speaker 4: Sha Bob Millits. It's like self defenselew. You flew halfway
Speaker 4: around the globe just to bomb people in Somalia, and
Speaker 4: you're going to pretend to tell us that this was
Speaker 4: about self defense. Maybe you needed to do that. Maybe
Speaker 4: these were the worst people on the planet, and it's
Speaker 4: wonderful that your your bombs blew them to smithereens. But
Speaker 4: let's not pretend that this had anything to do with
Speaker 4: self imminent self defense. And you had uh, you had
Speaker 4: Mike Lee, Todd Young, Chris Murphy and Tim Kaine. Who
Speaker 4: are you know, these are some you know, serious very
Speaker 4: across the yeah, across the board.
Speaker 7: Here.
Speaker 4: This is not this is not Bernie teaming up here
Speaker 4: with anybody righting to the White House saying if these
Speaker 4: are that, you have the right to respond immediately in
Speaker 4: a self defense capacity. Obviously there's a ship somewhere, there's
Speaker 4: a boat coming at it, or a missile coming at it,
Speaker 4: you can take action against that threat. Nobody says you
Speaker 4: need to like get a declaration of war to Congress
Speaker 4: before you can stop a speedboat, you know, with with
Speaker 4: explosives attached to it. If you are in prolonged hostilities
Speaker 4: that you have entered yourself into, you need authority. Even
Speaker 4: Ben Cardon, who's as close to the White House as
Speaker 4: hawkish as you can get, said that if they're going
Speaker 4: to continue this, they're going to need to get on
Speaker 4: sound or legal footing. So across the board, people are
Speaker 4: recognizing that this is not really sustainable.
Speaker 3: I love hearing from the Defense Department.
Speaker 4: Because the words that they use are so just the
Speaker 4: opposite of what we understand them to me.
Speaker 3: Well, they're all couched in legality.
Speaker 2: So like you said, US forces have the authorization to
Speaker 2: act in self defense basically anywhere, and they can do
Speaker 2: anything that they want. That's why they say it all.
Speaker 4: And they keep saying that we really don't want the
Speaker 4: war to spread, want we want the hostilities to de escalate.
Speaker 4: And the way their argument to give them as much
Speaker 4: credit as possible, is that that deterrence is the thing
Speaker 4: that is going to de escalate. And the way that
Speaker 4: you get your deterrence is by dropping bombs everywhere, because
Speaker 4: then everybody's scared of you and they're going to re
Speaker 4: treat problem for them is that there's no evidence that
Speaker 4: are on or its.
Speaker 3: Proxies are deterred by the fact that we have lots
Speaker 3: of bombs.
Speaker 2: To that, Ryan, there was an interesting thing I wanted
Speaker 2: to get your take on. Let's put this up there
Speaker 2: on the screen. Where the US is currently asking China
Speaker 2: to help bail it out of the Red Sea attacks.
Speaker 2: It says the US has asked China to urge Tehran
Speaker 2: to rein in the Hoothy rebels. According to American officials,
Speaker 2: they've repeatedly raised the issue with top Chinese officials in
Speaker 2: the past three months. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan
Speaker 2: and others actually spoke directly to the head of the
Speaker 2: Chinese Communist Party's International department, so did the Secretary of State,
Speaker 2: and yet there has been zero Chinese pressure so far.
Speaker 2: What do you make of this?
Speaker 3: Is it an admission of diplomatic failure?
Speaker 11: Is it?
Speaker 2: I mean, I personally think it's just humiliating because you
Speaker 2: have your main geopolitical rival and you're going to them
Speaker 2: and you're like, hey, guys, this is bad for you too,
Speaker 2: and they're like, is it They're like, because I'm raking
Speaker 2: in cash, you know, I'm like, you're your carriers the
Speaker 2: ones who are paying all these extra prices euros. You
Speaker 2: guys are the ones paying for the inflation. They're like,
Speaker 2: we're sitting here pretty, We're actually doing fine.
Speaker 4: The fact that this idea ever got off the State
Speaker 4: Department whiteboard shows just how bankrupt and out of ideas
Speaker 4: they are. So we could count the layers of absurdity here.
Speaker 4: First of all, the Houthis have actually, uh, the Houthis
Speaker 4: are warning ships before they fire on them. And the
Speaker 4: Houthians have told Russia and China that they're not going
Speaker 4: to attack Russia, Russian, and Chinese ships as long as
Speaker 4: those ships are not going to Israeli ports. We don't
Speaker 4: talk about that here in the United States because we
Speaker 4: pretend that the Houthis are a kind of nihilistic bunch
Speaker 4: of pirates who were just doing these things, these mean
Speaker 4: things to these ships for no reason. Russia and China
Speaker 4: are both aware of what the who these regional interests are,
Speaker 4: and what their global interests are and what their domestic
Speaker 4: interests are, and it's not to attack Chinese and Russian ships.
Speaker 4: So why are the Chinese and Russians so concerned about?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 4: Some of a lot of Chinese goods operate on US
Speaker 4: linked ships. So that's where the US thinks. Okay, China
Speaker 4: is having a problem here because now shipping costs are
Speaker 4: going up. Do we have the we can put the
Speaker 4: Suez Canal traffic?
Speaker 2: Guys, can we please put up the next elements three element?
Speaker 4: So you're seeing Suez Canal traffic just absolutely plummet. That's
Speaker 4: raising prices of shipping. The State Department thinks to itself, Okay, well,
Speaker 4: now the Chinese are upset because they're spending a little
Speaker 4: bit more for shipping costs. That's absurd because you know,
Speaker 4: China is sitting on you know, mountains of our cash
Speaker 4: for geopolitical advantage. They're constantly spending that money, and they're
Speaker 4: they're okay to take a little tiny hit if if
Speaker 4: it is causing us as much geopolitical damage as it is.
Speaker 4: So right off the bat, there's no reason to think
Speaker 4: that the Chinese are going to bail us out, because
Speaker 4: we're getting hurt worst by it than they are.
Speaker 3: The maybe third or fourth layer of absurdity.
Speaker 4: Is that China. First of all, Tehran does not run
Speaker 4: the hooties. Tehran has influence over the bothies. US has
Speaker 4: influence over Israel. Israel operates with its own a agency.
Speaker 4: Good point as well.
Speaker 3: But China does not run Tehran. They talk sometimes and
Speaker 3: they do business.
Speaker 2: They talk.
Speaker 4: You have influence that China is a big country that
Speaker 4: Tehran's going to listen to.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, China's on the phone the Iranian the I told
Speaker 3: him he's going to pick it up.
Speaker 4: He's taken that call. He's leaving whatever meeting, is going
Speaker 4: to take that call. That does not mean that he's
Speaker 4: going to do whatever China asks them to do.
Speaker 3: Good point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think all of this, you know, is as
Speaker 2: we always say, you know, it's not like the hooty
Speaker 2: thing came out of a vacuum. A lot of it
Speaker 2: stems back to Israel. And this is where the interesting
Speaker 2: point about is really pressured domestically for a cease fire
Speaker 2: may be increasing.
Speaker 3: Let's put this up there.
Speaker 2: We gave some of the preview of this the last
Speaker 2: time that we did a show together Ryan about these
Speaker 2: Israeli hostage families that crashed into this Kinesset meeting. But
Speaker 2: this time, you know, it's really starting to get attention internally,
Speaker 2: and they say, here, these really hostage families. Quote have
Speaker 2: nothing to lose in this push for a new deal,
Speaker 2: and the new deal that the Israeli government the warcap
Speaker 2: it had approved was a release of all hostages in
Speaker 2: exchange for two months. Easefire doesn't seem that it's being
Speaker 2: widely entertained, but clearly there's a lot of pressure because
Speaker 2: you have one hundred and thirty two hostages who remain
Speaker 2: in captivity. They say twenty eight of them are believed
Speaker 2: to have been dead either of injuries of Hamas or
Speaker 2: claim to have been killed by Israeli troops currently in
Speaker 2: the situation. But in general it does seem that many
Speaker 2: of these families have quote now mounted large scale demonstrations,
Speaker 2: met with officials, and are papering the entire country with posters,
Speaker 2: including traveling abroad to try and drum up global awareness.
Speaker 2: What do you make of that pressure inside of Israel
Speaker 2: and what effect it might have here on the heavy.
Speaker 4: Situation I think politically speaking. Oh one complication that also
Speaker 4: never gets mentioned the press, that we should yeah let
Speaker 4: our viewers into is that Hamas does not actually have
Speaker 4: all of these hostages. Like Hamas has released a lot
Speaker 4: of the civilian ones, what's remaining are mostly.
Speaker 2: Reservists, et cetera.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but a bunch of gangs and thugs and other
Speaker 4: groups went over the border on October seventh and have
Speaker 4: some we don't know, nobody knows how many, but it
Speaker 4: absolutely is some and a non trivial number. And so
Speaker 4: it's not even clear that Hamas and Hamas might be
Speaker 4: embarrassed in that sense, because you know, they're supposed to
Speaker 4: have total control.
Speaker 3: So you mean like criminal gangs palaestin In Isami Chihan.
Speaker 4: And they might not even know where they are, have
Speaker 4: the compacity, like Hamas could reach a deal with Kut
Speaker 4: or reaches a deal with Israel, and then Hamas might
Speaker 4: not be able to deliver on some of these So
Speaker 4: some of that is embarrassing for them. But separately from
Speaker 4: the Israeli government perspective, I feel like they have politically,
Speaker 4: they have two options. You know, they can reach a
Speaker 4: deal that releases the hostages, or they can achieve their
Speaker 4: military objectives of annihilating Hamas, wiping out the Palestinians and
Speaker 4: kind of basically repopulating it with Israeli settlements, which you
Speaker 4: hear from so many of the far right members of
Speaker 4: the of the current Israeli government. They are clearly failing
Speaker 4: at that first one, like Hamas is not eliminated. Their
Speaker 4: efforts to clear buffer zones the other day led to
Speaker 4: twenty one Israeli casualties. And so I think from an
Speaker 4: Israeli public that is saying, Okay, you're not accomplishing your
Speaker 4: primary objective. If you were, then maybe we could understand
Speaker 4: what you said in the beginning that you were going
Speaker 4: to be ruthless with the hostages. But if you're not
Speaker 4: accomplishing you're a military objective, then just get the hostages back,
Speaker 4: like you no longer have an excuse to refuse to
Speaker 4: negotiate over these hostages.
Speaker 3: And so they came forward with this two months cease
Speaker 3: fire offer.
Speaker 4: Whether it'd be a pause, release all the hostages, there'd
Speaker 4: be some release of Palestinian hostages, and then the hostilities
Speaker 4: would resume. And Hamas, and I think a lot of
Speaker 4: Palestinians is like, so in two months, are you going
Speaker 4: to let in enough humanitarian aid? It's not an end
Speaker 4: to this crisis. And then we've lost our bargaining ship,
Speaker 4: and then you're just going to just continue carpet bombing
Speaker 4: the place.
Speaker 2: That's a good point, that's actually a good segue to
Speaker 2: our next part here about the hostage of what is
Speaker 2: the demolishing buildings and the buffer zone. This is where
Speaker 2: those twenty four soldiers were actually killed. And one of
Speaker 2: these missions. Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This was part of the mission. It says Israel demolishing
Speaker 2: buildings to create a buffer zone within Gaza. It's unclear
Speaker 2: today what that buffer zone exactly, is how big it
Speaker 2: would be and whether it would be sanctioned by the
Speaker 2: international community. So Ryan, can you give us some of
Speaker 2: the details here and how this will fly in the
Speaker 2: face and you have problems with overall US diplomacy.
Speaker 4: So basically, the Iron Dome cannot protect Israeli kibbutzim that
Speaker 4: are right up against for obvious reasons right now, if
Speaker 4: you're that close. And that's why so many basically all
Speaker 4: residents in Israeli residents of that area have safe rooms
Speaker 4: so that these mortar shells are constantly fault you know,
Speaker 4: coming from Gaza and landing near these team and so
Speaker 4: they would sleep in safe rooms. And they thought that
Speaker 4: that was kind of enough that they could kind of
Speaker 4: quote unquote manage the conflict in the long term.
Speaker 3: October seventh proved that not to be the case.
Speaker 4: And so currently you have a displacement crisis in Israel
Speaker 4: because you have tens of thousands of people from the
Speaker 4: north that have left North of Israel, that have left
Speaker 4: because of the fighting with Hesbela, And you have tens
Speaker 4: of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of people who
Speaker 4: have left the Neck of Desert because of the hostilities
Speaker 4: in Gaza, and so they're living in hotels, they're living
Speaker 4: with relatives. There was already a housing crisis in Israel,
Speaker 4: which is related to why there are now seven hundred
Speaker 4: thousand settlers in the West Bank, because it's cheap housing
Speaker 4: for the Israeli population, just like in the United States.
Speaker 4: The one way we buy off our population cheap housing,
Speaker 4: go west, young man. And so in order to relieve that,
Speaker 4: they're trying to get people to be able to move
Speaker 4: back to the kibbutzs in southern Israel. And and what
Speaker 4: what they are now saying is we need a buffer zone.
Speaker 4: So we're going to demolish all of these uh civilian
Speaker 4: and residential areas that are kind of within X distance. Yes,
Speaker 4: and this one was only six hundred meters away from
Speaker 4: from a Kablutz. But there's others that are that are
Speaker 4: further away. Say anything with a line of sight they're
Speaker 4: going to knock down. International law is extremely clear.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, so, how does this complicate
Speaker 2: US diplomacy, international law?
Speaker 4: And under international law, if you want a buffer zone,
Speaker 4: you have to use your own territory to do it,
Speaker 4: Like you don't want to live too close to us.
Speaker 4: It's like, it's like if San Diego wanted a buffer
Speaker 4: zone between it and Tijuana, they'd have to knock down
Speaker 4: san Diego. You can't, you can't go into Tijuana, be
Speaker 4: like this is too close. Yes, we're leveling this right
Speaker 4: and so separately the United States, international law whatever that
Speaker 4: is what it is. The United States has said one
Speaker 4: of their lines, and I want to call it a
Speaker 4: red line, because they've said there are no red lines.
Speaker 4: But one of the public things that they've insisted Israel
Speaker 4: not to is take land from Gaza to create buffer zones.
Speaker 4: They've said, do not do that. Is Israeli government continues
Speaker 4: to say, we are going to do that.
Speaker 3: So I have some update on that.
Speaker 2: John Kirby was actually asked about this by the Financial Times.
Speaker 2: He says, quote, we do not want to see the
Speaker 2: territory of Gaza reduced in any way. However, the Secretary
Speaker 2: of State Anthony Blincoln struck a softer line on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: saying that while the US is clear about not encroaching
Speaker 2: on Gazen territory, there might be scope for quote transitional arrangements.
Speaker 2: Not exactly sure what that means, but.
Speaker 4: I think actually the euphemism just dropped.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that the major actual diplomatic crises that
Speaker 2: might come out of this may not involve America.
Speaker 3: It's actually probably Egypt. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 3: the screen.
Speaker 2: Egypt actually lashed out yesterday saying that extremist Israeli leaders
Speaker 2: are seizing Gazen Egyptian buffer Zone territory because of nets
Speaker 2: and Yahu's suggestion that Israel is going to have to
Speaker 2: take control of the one hundred yard buffer zone on
Speaker 2: the Gaza side of the Egypt and Gaza border. The
Speaker 2: Israelis are like, Hey, this is the Philadelphia Corridor, this
Speaker 2: is the above ground and through tunnels. This is where
Speaker 2: a lot of the supplies and the smuggling and the
Speaker 2: weapons and all that comes through. The head actually of
Speaker 2: the Egyptian State Information Service said on Monday. This is
Speaker 2: an attempt to create legitimacy of the Israeli government's real
Speaker 2: goal of occupying the border corridor in violation of the
Speaker 2: security agreements that have been signed between those two neighbors.
Speaker 2: Will remember that if we go back and we think
Speaker 2: about Oslo, and we think about some of the other
Speaker 2: international gream all the way going back to sixty seven
Speaker 2: and you know, Jordan and all the control of the
Speaker 2: border and all of that, Egyptian control of that border
Speaker 2: has always been very important. The Rougha crossing today remains
Speaker 2: the main thoroughfare of humanitarian aid and others. And especially
Speaker 2: if we consider, you know, in the future, the idea
Speaker 2: of people in Gaza crossing the Israeli border to go
Speaker 2: work in Israel probably seems like zero.
Speaker 3: For me, What do you think in five years, I
Speaker 3: don't think that's.
Speaker 2: Going to happen. And so if that's the case, it's
Speaker 2: very hard to see.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 2: Right, So if we think about that, then we're talking
Speaker 2: about really the only way in and out of the country,
Speaker 2: and they're like, no, we're going to take control of that.
Speaker 2: That really is going to rankle a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Inside of Egypt, because this is now a problem of
Speaker 2: sovereignty on their part and of violation of agreement that
Speaker 2: they have signed. And these people have fought two wars
Speaker 2: in the past.
Speaker 4: It's not a joke, right, and the Egyptians and the
Speaker 4: Palestinians and the UN have all said this humanitarian crisis,
Speaker 4: where we're talking about two million people being in the
Speaker 4: grips of famine, on the brink of starvation, dying from disease,
Speaker 4: is caused by the Israeli government, you know, restricting the
Speaker 4: amount of humanitarian aid that can get into the country.
Speaker 4: There is also a border in the north between Israel
Speaker 4: and Godz that is just completely shut down. Israel has
Speaker 4: complete control over that. If they could load every truck
Speaker 4: and make sure that all that's in there is baby formula,
Speaker 4: diapers and aspirin and roll those trucks through there, there
Speaker 4: would be no question, because these these are the ones
Speaker 4: loading the trucks that there are going to be weapons
Speaker 4: or RPGs or new amo for Hamas. The people in
Speaker 4: the north are perhaps suffering more than even the people
Speaker 4: down in the south because Israel's blocking getting humanitarian relief
Speaker 4: through their own border and is also bombing any convoy
Speaker 4: that goes from the south up to the north and
Speaker 4: refusing to deconflict. And so you have a situation where
Speaker 4: people are just scrounging, like absolute hunger Games style stuff
Speaker 4: in the north. And so Egypt is the like. And
Speaker 4: you think we're going to turn over the southern border
Speaker 4: to you as well, which is our border. Given what
Speaker 4: we have seen, you do like you have lost all
Speaker 4: moral legitimacy to maintain any any any any immigration or
Speaker 4: border control on the Egyptian side. And so and also
Speaker 4: CC and BB have not spoken since October seventh, is
Speaker 4: what the reporting is. Wow, and they crazy it's there,
Speaker 4: nator like because the Egyptian and Israeli normalization was one
Speaker 4: of the great triumphs of Israeli foreign policy.
Speaker 2: All right, final thing, Ryan, you've got You have got
Speaker 2: a story for us involving playing cards.
Speaker 3: Why don't you tell us?
Speaker 2: So we have a picture of said playing cards you
Speaker 2: can put up there screen. These are reminiscent of what
Speaker 2: were these the same playing cards from the Iraq War
Speaker 2: and now these are being sold and you have the
Speaker 2: exclusive on the story, so go ahead and tell us
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 4: Yes, in fact, we do have an exclusive here. So
Speaker 4: a group of critics of Israel's war effort, okay, led
Speaker 4: by a man name Ashesh Prashar, who's a kind of
Speaker 4: UK kind of political consultant. You may have heard of him,
Speaker 4: well known in the UK. Worked for Boris Johnson Tony
Speaker 4: Blair as when Tony Blair was Midi's envoy. The rest
Speaker 4: of the folks involved in this are remaining anonymous, but
Speaker 4: they have created a deck of cards kind of modeled
Speaker 4: after the US created deck of war criminal cards in
Speaker 4: the era during the Iraq War.
Speaker 3: Remember they were going out out and try.
Speaker 4: To They're also working loosely with international human rights organizations
Speaker 4: and prosecutors around the world. Uh in at least these
Speaker 4: countries Switzerland, Mexico, Bolivia, Ireland, Spain, Belgium, and Columbia. And
Speaker 4: in each of these countries they are they're finding they're
Speaker 4: working with either human rights organizations or prosecutors to try
Speaker 4: to file charges if they can get an Irish judge
Speaker 4: to issue arrest warrants anybody who comes into the EU
Speaker 4: at that point going to struggle point. The cards are
Speaker 4: a propaganda device to keep it in the mind, keep
Speaker 4: it in people's minds. But here let's here. I'll show
Speaker 4: you a couple of them here. So here we got.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: The sixth of Spades is Brett McGirk, who is kind
Speaker 4: of the midi Us, the Ace of Diamonds, Ace of Clubs.
Speaker 4: Matt Miller impressed, impresses the spokesperson, Matt Miller. So let's
Speaker 4: see if you can follow. You have any money on you?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 2: What do we need?
Speaker 3: Okay, let's play for twenty What do you think twenty bucks?
Speaker 4: Geez?
Speaker 2: Okay, here you go.
Speaker 4: You got to follow? How about you? How about you follow?
Speaker 4: You want to follow that yaho?
Speaker 2: Yes, I'll follow it.
Speaker 7: Here we go?
Speaker 2: Yes, all right? Right, oh, all right, it's yours. It's
Speaker 2: here's Ryan.
Speaker 4: Thank it, keep it and you can keep that in Yaho.
Speaker 2: Okay. If you see him, report him to authority. All right,
Speaker 2: we'll have a link down in the description for all
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 4: You can keep it, all right always at the war
Speaker 4: Criminals dot com if people want to buy their own deck.
Speaker 2: That is a pretty prized up.
Speaker 4: Forty percent of profits are going to Gaza charities. Uh.
Speaker 4: The rest is being kept for taxes and also for
Speaker 4: possible defamation judgments in the future, which is always nice
Speaker 4: to set that aside. If you've got a deck of
Speaker 4: work criminal.
Speaker 2: Cards, interesting stuff, we'll have a link down there in
Speaker 2: the description. Okay, let's move on to Boeing. There's some
Speaker 2: crazy stuff going on in the world of Boeing. The
Speaker 2: Alaska Airline CEO, who originally it was their plane that
Speaker 2: was affected by those loose door plugs, has now come
Speaker 2: out and said to NBC News that actually they have
Speaker 2: found many other aircraft that have been affected by that issue.
Speaker 3: Here's what we had to say.
Speaker 13: We found some loose bolts on many of our Max
Speaker 13: nine So those many, Yeah, so those are things that
Speaker 13: are going to be rectified through the inspection process.
Speaker 2: Flight twelve eighty two was a new Boeing Max nine.
Speaker 12: The door plug covers an unused emergency exit in planes
Speaker 12: with fewer seats.
Speaker 4: It makes you mad. It makes you mad.
Speaker 13: That we're finding issues like that on Branding airplanes.
Speaker 12: Thankfully, no one was sitting next to the plug when
Speaker 12: it exploded. Looking at that video and those photos, did
Speaker 12: you think, my god, what if somebody were sitting there.
Speaker 13: There were only seven open seats, and we had a
Speaker 13: guardian angel honestly on that airplane, and I just want
Speaker 13: to take a moment here to say how sorry I
Speaker 13: am for our guests on flight twelve eighty two for
Speaker 13: what the experience was just a terrifying flight. It makes
Speaker 13: me angry. Tom Boeing is better than this, and flight
Speaker 13: twelve eighty two should never have happened. Should never have happened.
Speaker 2: That's a pretty diplomatic way of saying, screw you Boeing again.
Speaker 2: And look, Boeing has had some real issues now in
Speaker 2: the last month, let's put this up there. In the
Speaker 2: last twenty days, Boeing seven thirty seven has a panel
Speaker 2: ripoff in midair, cockpit windows cracked. On January thirteenth, Boeing
Speaker 2: seven thirty seven stranded Anthony Blincoln, Boeing seven forty seven
Speaker 2: cargo plane burned up in the sky. January twentieth, Boeing
Speaker 2: plane in Atlanta loses a wheel, and January twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: Boeing has to pause all production quote for a quality
Speaker 2: focused day. And I would say that's pretty warranted because
Speaker 2: the news is now coming out from the Seattle Times,
Speaker 2: which has done phenomenal investigations into Boeing now for years
Speaker 2: and years, and they say that the door plug that
Speaker 2: blew off of the Alaska Airlines Max nine jet this
Speaker 2: month was removed for repair and reinstalled by Boeing Mechanics
Speaker 2: at its rent in assembly line. Starting a person who
Speaker 2: was familiar with the matter that Boeing is refusing to comment,
Speaker 2: saying that they cannot do so because of the NTSB investigation.
Speaker 2: But this shows that currently Boeing had the key role
Speaker 2: in installing and checking that part. Previously, Boeing was trying
Speaker 2: to put some of the blame or at least cast
Speaker 2: out that it may have been their fault, it could
Speaker 2: have been their supplier, Spirit Aerosystems. What people forget is
Speaker 2: that Spirit aerosystem is actually spun off by Boeing back
Speaker 2: in two thousand and five. It was part of their
Speaker 2: whole financial reorganization of the company. You can spin it off,
Speaker 2: you can still buy from them. It's all just bs,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of boosting their stock, same thing
Speaker 2: in terms of the stock buybacks. But what's coming to
Speaker 2: light now is a genuine crisis I think you know
Speaker 2: for this company because you have now three incidents from
Speaker 2: Alaska Airlines to the seventh third seven max is that
Speaker 2: literally fell out of the sky and killed hundreds of
Speaker 2: people in the span of what five six years. That's
Speaker 2: how you kill one hundred year old company. Yeah, when
Speaker 2: people are dead, and as the CEO said, I mean,
Speaker 2: if somebody was sitting there, it's very possibly could again
Speaker 2: sucked out of the sky. And actually even if nobody
Speaker 2: was sitting there and that accident happened at higher altitude
Speaker 2: from what I had read from aviation experts, absolutely it's
Speaker 2: on the table. For there was an incident over a
Speaker 2: United flight many many years ago over I think it
Speaker 2: was over the ocean. It was like somewhere to Honolulu.
Speaker 2: Same thing as like nine people got sucked out of
Speaker 2: the plane. They never even found their bodies. Imagine that.
Speaker 2: That's a whole other story too. And they definitely and
Speaker 2: they would have been directly responsible for that if it's
Speaker 2: their fault here. Yeah, when as a as a.
Speaker 4: Flyer, you start going from oh Man, I hope I
Speaker 4: can get the emergency roads, I can have extra leg rooms.
Speaker 4: You like, hope I don't get the emergency road because
Speaker 4: I might get sucked out the door and into the sky.
Speaker 4: Then you know you have a problem. Ye Pete Buddha
Speaker 4: Judge is announcing. You know, the Lever News has been
Speaker 4: doing great work past the Road Is News organization. Following
Speaker 4: some of that, the Buddha Judge announced they quote bigger
Speaker 4: picture exam of Boeing issues. I don't know what little
Speaker 4: picture the Buddha Judge and his FAA were looking at
Speaker 4: when it came to Boeing, because basically, Boeing is it
Speaker 4: like Boeing is the is the kind of US airline manufacturing.
Speaker 2: We have a duopoly in airlines, right, we have Airbus
Speaker 2: and we have Boeing. And it's a tragedy, it's offense.
Speaker 4: It was an Airbus plane that stranded justin Trudeau, you remember, hilarious, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what I bet that was Shenanigan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the part of somebody. Here's the thing, here's why
Speaker 2: it matters. The most Airbus is European company. So that
Speaker 2: means that let's say, push comps to shove, and we've
Speaker 2: got to look out for ourselves. We've only got Boeing,
Speaker 2: that's it. They cranked out one hundred thousand planes in
Speaker 2: World War Two. Nowadays we really trust US pilots on
Speaker 2: top of a Boeing aircraft. I don't know. And they've
Speaker 2: got a century now you know of of work that
Speaker 2: they have done to invest in this brand. It was
Speaker 2: one of the most important iconic brands in the world.
Speaker 2: I would say, think too of the eighties and the
Speaker 2: story you know, actually even before that, of the pride
Speaker 2: that the people in Seattle and in Washington had of
Speaker 2: working for this company, of knowing that millions of people
Speaker 2: set foot on their aircraft, that you know, they had
Speaker 2: one of the low the best safety rates.
Speaker 3: In the entire world.
Speaker 2: And then you know, all throughout the nineties and the
Speaker 2: two thousands, they start spinning off companies, they start reorganizing,
Speaker 2: they're moving their headquarters. It becomes basically a financial bank
Speaker 2: as opposed to an actual airline or sorry, an aircraft
Speaker 2: manufacturing company. And now you really are reaping the rewards
Speaker 2: of that. And the craziest part is we all thought
Speaker 2: it had stopped after those two planes five.
Speaker 4: It was a wake up call for that.
Speaker 3: It should have been the wake up I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: hundreds of people were dead.
Speaker 4: It's a problem with it's directly your fault, yes, and
Speaker 4: it's it's a culture. You saw it change, you know,
Speaker 4: coming out of the kind of New Deal era. You've
Speaker 4: got this like consensus between the state and these giant
Speaker 4: corporations that there is there's a welfare general welfare kind
Speaker 4: of attitude or around the business approach in eighties and nineties,
Speaker 4: it becomes just pure financialization, like how do we extract
Speaker 4: as much capital out of this company and give it
Speaker 4: to investors. And so that's why you see them spending
Speaker 4: so much on you know, stock buybacks and otherwise just
Speaker 4: hiring a bunch of people who are like McKinsey types
Speaker 4: to look at their system and figure out ways that
Speaker 4: they can make it more profitable. The board that they
Speaker 4: going lobbied against a rule that would have required that
Speaker 4: most of their board know what they're talking about when
Speaker 4: it comes to like flying an airplane, because instead they say,
Speaker 4: you mean, having Nikki Haley on your board is not
Speaker 4: actually turns out to the company. It turns out that
Speaker 4: it is a benefit to the company in terms of
Speaker 4: profitability and making sure that you can keep the money
Speaker 4: flowing into the company and then back out to investors.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it turns out Nicki Haley doesn't know a
Speaker 4: whole lot about actually flying or building an airplane. And
Speaker 4: they fought against a rule that would have required the
Speaker 4: board to know what they were doing.
Speaker 2: And this is why it's tragic, is look at the
Speaker 2: Alaska Airlines guy. You know, at a certain point it's like,
Speaker 2: and by the way, a Last Airlines. I love a
Speaker 2: Last Airlines, so great, great airline if you get the
Speaker 2: chance to fly it. The thing is is that they're
Speaker 2: pissed because they're like, who else we're supposed buy airplanes from? Yeah,
Speaker 2: well we had a deal. We paid you billions of
Speaker 2: dollars for these aircraft that we're fly. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3: It was like, we're supposed to just work. And now
Speaker 3: you know, like you said, his brand is tarnished.
Speaker 2: It's not just him. United also they were a huge
Speaker 2: purchaser of a seven thirty seven Max nines. Let's put
Speaker 2: this up there. The CEO of United and now Alaska
Speaker 2: Airlines are coming out and they are really pissed with
Speaker 2: Boeing and the manufacturer. I mean what they're saying, and
Speaker 2: you have some of the quotes here are just withering.
Speaker 2: They say, well, we're at least going to build a
Speaker 2: plan that doesn't have to have the Max ten in it.
Speaker 2: This is United Airlines, it's one of the largest airlines
Speaker 2: in the world. We will hope Boeing gets its certification
Speaker 2: at some point. We're just going to build an alternative
Speaker 2: plan that doesn't have that that's devastating. And already Delta
Speaker 2: actually just bought a ton of air buses. I believe
Speaker 2: that they already had existing in their talk. But the
Speaker 2: same problem remains is that if you have US airlines
Speaker 2: and even buying from a US company, that increases all
Speaker 2: the problems with globalization with where it's assembled. I mean,
Speaker 2: I saw a meme posted online, so like, guys, you know,
Speaker 2: Airbus is a company where they barely work like thirty
Speaker 2: five hours a week, and they get You're these Euros
Speaker 2: who barely even show.
Speaker 4: Down in August.
Speaker 3: They almost August Airbus shut down. They barely go to work,
Speaker 3: and they build better planes than us.
Speaker 4: What the hell is going to the south of France
Speaker 4: sipping sipping, Uh yeah, Rose exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're going to promots and hanging out in Burgundy
Speaker 2: and all this. And it's like, and the joke's on
Speaker 2: us because our guys are boeing, are getting paid like
Speaker 2: not a lot much money.
Speaker 3: They barely have they've been living, functioning.
Speaker 2: They they have non functioning pensions, and there's CEOs and
Speaker 2: executives are flying around like gajillionaires. There's also been a
Speaker 2: really troubling report from view of the wing. These are
Speaker 2: some airlines specific aviation news outlets which have been fantastic,
Speaker 2: And this one just came out a couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: It says Boeing whistleblower production line quote has an enormous
Speaker 2: volume of volume of defects on the Max nine and
Speaker 2: we're not installed. This came one of their whistleblower says,
Speaker 2: I will save you waiting two years for NTSB to
Speaker 2: just come out and give it to you for free.
Speaker 2: The reason that door blue off is stated in black
Speaker 2: and white in its records. It is very stupid and
Speaker 2: it speaks volumes of the quality culture at certain portions
Speaker 2: of this business.
Speaker 3: Why did the left hand bolt fall out?
Speaker 2: Simple, as has been covered in numbers of articles, there
Speaker 2: are four bolts that prevent the mid exit door plug
Speaker 2: from sliding up off the roof dress stop fittings that
Speaker 2: take the actual pressurization loads in the aircraft. These four
Speaker 2: bolts were not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane. That's it.
Speaker 3: Our own records reflect this.
Speaker 2: How crazy is that the four bolts that are supposed
Speaker 2: to be there to make sure that the door does
Speaker 2: not fall off in the middle of the sky did
Speaker 2: not work. It's just nuts. I mean, we're sorry, we're
Speaker 2: not installed on the aircraft whenever it was delivered to Alaska,
Speaker 2: which explains why their CEO is so angry there in
Speaker 2: that interview.
Speaker 3: So, you know, just another examp sample of the degradation
Speaker 3: of that company.
Speaker 2: Some we talked. I did a monologue on about the financialization.
Speaker 2: It really is a tragedy and it gets to exactly
Speaker 2: what you said about the government and more. Okay, let's
Speaker 2: move on now to like I said, the fun segments,
Speaker 2: to the two fun ones that we had to get
Speaker 2: into the show. Senator Chuck Schumer, who has long been
Speaker 2: kind of a hall monitor whenever it comes to substances
Speaker 2: that people may be enjoying. Say, you know, for Loco,
Speaker 2: which was certainly quite a bit of.
Speaker 4: Fun, that was barely new for it.
Speaker 2: I barely know. It was actually banned my freshman year
Speaker 2: in college, which we will never forget. I can tell
Speaker 2: you those of us who were in a fraternity at
Speaker 2: that time. Chuck Schumer now returning to another fraternity, I
Speaker 2: guess substance of choice, which is zen calling for a
Speaker 2: crackdown and a pouch full of problems.
Speaker 14: Here's what he had to say, pouch packed with problems,
Speaker 14: high levels of nicotine. So today I'm delivering a warning
Speaker 14: to parents because these nicotine pouches seem to lock their
Speaker 14: sites on young kids, teenagers and even lower and then
Speaker 14: use the social media to hook them.
Speaker 2: Uses the social media to hook them. I'm not so
Speaker 2: sure about that. One zin for those who don't know,
Speaker 2: is like the oral nicotine pouch. It was developed, you know,
Speaker 2: after many of the cancer problems came to light around chewing, tobacco, smoking, etc.
Speaker 2: And there's actually been a real resurgence, i would say,
Speaker 2: in nicotine usage these days because they've been able to
Speaker 2: disaggregate it from you know, tobacco and the carcinogens which
Speaker 2: are in that. It just led to a lot of
Speaker 2: really interesting discussions if people are interested. Andrew Huberman did
Speaker 2: an entire episode on nicotine. There's been a lot of
Speaker 2: discussion about the no tropic effects of nicotine. Again, if
Speaker 2: you are able to look at it in a synthetic form,
Speaker 2: which is you know, actual house quality control and all
Speaker 2: that stuff behind it, as opposed to inside of a cigarette,
Speaker 2: which is addicting you to smoking, I think there's a
Speaker 2: legitimate conversation I think to be had around all of that.
Speaker 2: But culturally this one is very interesting because clearly they've
Speaker 2: touched a nerve. This very much gets to some of
Speaker 2: the barsool conservative ideas and things that I've put out
Speaker 2: before here on the show. For example, one congressman actually
Speaker 2: tweeting out quote Zin, come and take it in the
Speaker 2: same way that we have the don't tread on me
Speaker 2: flag and other things.
Speaker 3: What do you make of this, Ryan, Because.
Speaker 2: What fascinates me is Chuck also wants to legalize pot.
Speaker 2: So how can you be for legal weed and want
Speaker 2: to crack down on zin nicotine pouches, which already I
Speaker 2: believe in the city of New York you have to
Speaker 2: be twenty one years old or older to buy.
Speaker 3: I know, at the very least wherever.
Speaker 2: The places I buy is from, you have to be
Speaker 2: twenty one years old or older in order to be
Speaker 2: a consumer. And these people are pretty religious about checking it.
Speaker 2: So I mean, this idea that they're being targeted towards
Speaker 2: children and all that seems ridiculous to me. You could
Speaker 2: make that case for Chinese vapes for what are those
Speaker 2: called the health bars stuff like that. Yeah, maybe, but
Speaker 2: even then I wouldn't necessarily say that you should ban it,
Speaker 2: although it's probably way less healthy to vape than it
Speaker 2: is to use zin, which is the most ironic part.
Speaker 4: Of all this. If Chuck does ever succeed in legalizing weed, yes,
Speaker 4: I'm sure on day.
Speaker 3: Two he will be coming after weed company for marketing
Speaker 3: to kids.
Speaker 4: So in that sense, I doubt that in that sense
Speaker 4: it will be consistent, which and you know, I actually
Speaker 4: think that that's a good place for a society to
Speaker 4: end up.
Speaker 3: That interesting that adults should.
Speaker 4: Have you know, reasonable access to you know, high quality
Speaker 4: and regulated products that are aren't going to poison you,
Speaker 4: and that kids should not be marketed to that, and
Speaker 4: that you know, developing brains should be you know protected
Speaker 4: from zin and whatever whatever else. It's like, it's not
Speaker 4: as your brain is developing, it's not good for you.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting to me. Listen, you are absolutely right
Speaker 2: about weed. Let's let's be very very clear about that.
Speaker 2: But what's fascinating to me actually is that this actually
Speaker 2: has caused a little bit of an organic pushback inside
Speaker 2: of Congress. So, for example, you had many Republican congressmen
Speaker 2: and senators go on the record. Senator Tommy Tubberville says, quote,
Speaker 2: it's going to make a lot of people mad.
Speaker 3: He wants to do that and then also cut out
Speaker 3: menthol cigarettes.
Speaker 2: We don't need to do that. The menthol one I
Speaker 2: have always found fascinating, and maybe you and I can
Speaker 2: talk about it, because why would you target specifically menthol cigarettes? Now,
Speaker 2: their justification, as I understand it, is that menthol cigarettes
Speaker 2: are predominantly smoked by people in the black community, and
Speaker 2: thus you should ban menthol cigarettes basically for the own
Speaker 2: good of the people who smoke them. Now, that's to
Speaker 2: me seems outrageous because it's like you're protecting white cigarettes,
Speaker 2: but you're not. You're gonna regulate black cigarettes. Like, first
Speaker 2: of all, that's insane, and it's not just black people
Speaker 2: smoke menthols. I think a lot of people smoke menthols,
Speaker 2: even amongst the twenty percent of Americans are today who
Speaker 2: do still smoke. But like, how can you move to
Speaker 2: ban one type of cigarette which is preferred by some
Speaker 2: and then leave others as completely legal.
Speaker 3: That makes absolutely zero sense to me.
Speaker 4: The only discrimination to me is that is that you
Speaker 4: can countenance is around age and so maybe you've got
Speaker 4: some life call monitors who would say, well, the you know,
Speaker 4: kids like menthols more. But you're right, it's it's it's
Speaker 4: it's racial.
Speaker 2: No, But the public health justification I've seen explicitly says
Speaker 2: this is trying to protect Black Americans. Like they're they're
Speaker 2: being honest about it. The people who want to ban
Speaker 2: the menthols. So I'm like, what, what, Like, how can
Speaker 2: you first of all, you're making a decision. Are menthols
Speaker 2: somebody else? Are Menthols more carcinogenic than Actually, I honestly
Speaker 2: don't know. The most I've ever read into it really
Speaker 2: was the racial angle. But I mean, I would just
Speaker 2: say this with cigarettes, with nicotine, with any of these things,
Speaker 2: it's like people who drink alcohol. Nobody is drinking alcohol
Speaker 2: and be like, this is really good for me, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm really improving my health right now.
Speaker 4: Nobody there was an attempt of people to full them.
Speaker 2: For the red wine thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is BS okay, And nobody even believed that exactly.
Speaker 2: It was people it was something that they could joke
Speaker 2: about while they were relaxing and have a good time.
Speaker 2: Everyone understands that's a trade off. Same thing whenever it
Speaker 2: comes to cigarettes, I know a lot of people smoke cigarettes.
Speaker 2: Nobody smokes because they're like, this is really good for me. Okay,
Speaker 2: They're like, I enjoy it. It's a trade off. I
Speaker 2: know that it makes some.
Speaker 4: People because they think it helps them keep weight off. Okay,
Speaker 4: but once again, like you know they're doing that, but
Speaker 4: they know it's hurting them.
Speaker 2: They know that they have what is it a twenty
Speaker 2: six hundred percent or whatever increase? Even nicotine full mea culpa.
Speaker 2: I use nicotine. I mostly to nicotine gum, not a lot,
Speaker 2: but I and you know what, I know that it
Speaker 2: is what is it a vasoconstrictor. I know that it
Speaker 2: will have downstream health effects. I'm willing to make that
Speaker 2: trade off because of the no tropic benefits. I think
Speaker 2: that it's a very very powerful not tropic I think
Speaker 2: it's one where there's actually.
Speaker 3: A lot of discussion that remains to be had.
Speaker 2: Where As a society, the vast majority of Americans either
Speaker 2: used to smoke or lived in a smoking household forties
Speaker 2: and sixties and all that.
Speaker 3: You know, you can think of the mad Men and all.
Speaker 2: That, and then because of public health, we just all
Speaker 2: stopped using anteine for a while. I mean, listen, was
Speaker 2: it a that benefit or not? Like maybe we definitely,
Speaker 2: you know, we live longer, but yeah, what about our
Speaker 2: mental clarity? You ever see those guys in Apollo? What
Speaker 2: does everyone doing in Apollo thirteen?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Figured, I think we got to the moon?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like you think they figured out how to
Speaker 2: put a round filter into a square hole or whatever.
Speaker 2: You think they did that all by themselves. Okay, they
Speaker 2: need a cigarette now. Look, I'm not promoting smoking, and
Speaker 2: it definitely is very bad for you. Same in terms nicotine.
Speaker 2: It is a highly, highly addictive substance of which I
Speaker 2: have seen people.
Speaker 3: Go way down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: Many of these frat kids are not using it for
Speaker 2: no trupic benefits. They're just buzzed out of their minds
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 3: That's said.
Speaker 2: You know, okay, you know, if we live in a
Speaker 2: free country now, many people would say soccer, how is
Speaker 2: this so hypocritical whenever it comes to your stance on weed,
Speaker 2: and people say that, but people misunderstand that I am
Speaker 2: not for I do not believe in the criminalization of marijuana.
Speaker 2: I do, however, however, think that there is a very
Speaker 2: unhealthy trend amongst people who use marijuana who are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but this one kid with siegers took it and it
Speaker 2: cured them. And it's like, yeah, but you don't have epilepsy, dude,
Speaker 2: Like you don't have child to have epilepsy. Like you're
Speaker 2: just a stoner, Like you're just sitting on your ass
Speaker 2: doing nothing. And I think that there is not the same,
Speaker 2: and you correct me if I'm wrong. More immersed in
Speaker 2: that world perhaps than I am. There is less of
Speaker 2: an acknowledgment for people who are daily pot users in
Speaker 2: that doing that they understand fully. They're like this is bad,
Speaker 2: Like this is not good for me, right, And we
Speaker 2: have seen an explosion of high THHC products that are
Speaker 2: on the market, totally unregulated, most of it coming from China,
Speaker 2: some of it you know, really really unhealthy, and really,
Speaker 2: you know, this is.
Speaker 3: The other part nobody wants to talk about.
Speaker 2: Same with alcohol, you know, as alcohol can be very
Speaker 2: conducive to horrible behavior like drunk driving and to substance
Speaker 2: spousal abuse and all these other things. Ask any cop
Speaker 2: how many alcohol related instances are in marijuana? You know,
Speaker 2: it's driving while impaired is not necessarily good. We don't
Speaker 2: have the same cultural stigma against it. And you know,
Speaker 2: I recently tweeted out a chart kind of wish we'd
Speaker 2: pulled it for this segment which is about the drug
Speaker 2: induced psychosis. Cannabis is actually the number one substance that
Speaker 2: they have seen in which there is drug induced psychosis,
Speaker 2: even more so than alcohol, cocaine, methampheta and other There's
Speaker 2: been long, you know, Tell your children in the book
Speaker 2: written by Alex Barentson, a link and even Joe Rogan,
Speaker 2: a you know, marijuana fiend, would acknowledge this, is that
Speaker 2: there is a link between very very high THC, which
Speaker 2: is very much on the market right now, and people
Speaker 2: who are predisposed to schizophrenia having a full blown psychotic break.
Speaker 3: And people who would advocate for pot need to understand that.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, yeah, I think I think that's fair. And
Speaker 4: for a community in the society to get there, you've
Speaker 4: got to have it legally, you got to have it regulated,
Speaker 4: you have you have to have access to product that
Speaker 4: you you know, can trust and can can analyze and
Speaker 4: can understand. H And I think that a free people
Speaker 4: can work can work that out. But I think you're
Speaker 4: right that culturally people need to acknowledge the downsides as
Speaker 4: well in a way that they don't quite with alcohol. Well,
Speaker 4: in alcohol is worse. What do you mean by that? So,
Speaker 4: like you said, everybody that drinks knows is bad, yeah,
Speaker 4: but also fun yeah or whatever. For some people that's
Speaker 4: not even fun anymore. They're just kind of can't just
Speaker 4: can't quit, right, that's right.
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of people who have like
Speaker 2: full blown alcoholism, which we don't talk about it, not
Speaker 2: from this country, right, Yeah, But.
Speaker 4: I think there's less willingness to recognize the downsides if
Speaker 4: we'd compared to compared to alcohol. I think one reason
Speaker 4: for that is that the downsides of alcohol are so
Speaker 4: much more obvious and clear and dramatic than the downsides
Speaker 4: of weed. That doesn't mean that there aren't downsides of yes,
Speaker 4: marijuana and cannabis, So you've got to I think that
Speaker 4: is something they should.
Speaker 2: I just wish I could hear that more from people
Speaker 2: who are obsessed with pot, because you know, all the
Speaker 2: data right now tells us that the increase, for example,
Speaker 2: in pot usage, everyone's like, see there's a lot more popular.
Speaker 2: A lot of it is daily smokers, Like we have
Speaker 2: a whole new generation of high potents and the LBHC exactly,
Speaker 2: edibles you got, marijuana and drinks now, lollypops like all this.
Speaker 3: I can't even keep up with what the hell is
Speaker 3: going on here.
Speaker 2: And within all of that, there is not again the
Speaker 2: same culture at least from my you know, from my
Speaker 2: view of what I've been able to find, same thing
Speaker 2: In terms of smoking. It's like, hey, you know, inhaling,
Speaker 2: smoking your lungs is still bad for you, Like it
Speaker 2: doesn't not just because it's not cigarettes doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: it's like good. Whenever you're smoking marijuana constantly all the time,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of you know, health effects. Again,
Speaker 2: I would recommend Huberman did an entire podcast on marijuana,
Speaker 2: THHC and all of that.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of linksage.
Speaker 4: Because nicotine went out too, you should It's it's.
Speaker 2: Very interesting, and I want to be very clear here.
Speaker 2: It is a highly addictive substance for which some people
Speaker 2: who use it will find it incredibly difficult to quit.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of differences in between people's genetics and
Speaker 2: their tolerability. Just as I'm a coffee fiend, I love caffeine,
Speaker 2: I always have, you know, I can drink five six
Speaker 2: cups of coffee.
Speaker 3: I know people who have one and they can't even function.
Speaker 2: So I mean, every every person is different, and you
Speaker 2: know you should never there's no such thing as a
Speaker 2: free lunch. Like whenever you're you know, riding high on nicotine,
Speaker 2: you're going to be coming down. Trust me, Like you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's gonna be dow. The question is is like
Speaker 2: is that useful to you? You know, are you making
Speaker 2: an informed choice? Like?
Speaker 3: How does all that work?
Speaker 2: I think we should have the same culture around that
Speaker 2: with marijuana, of which I do not currently see right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just year and everywhere. Also, the smell is terrible.
Speaker 2: Let's be honest, all right, you can't walk down the
Speaker 2: city street without smelling this shit.
Speaker 4: They call it skunk for a reason. I kind of
Speaker 4: like the smell.
Speaker 2: But I miss I wish Crystal is here. I wish
Speaker 2: I wish she was here to talk about this. Does
Speaker 2: move on to the John storet block, the final the
Speaker 2: fun segment here. I'm really curious to see what you
Speaker 2: think because you worked professionally in media whenever he was
Speaker 2: a really big deal. So the news is in. Let's
Speaker 2: put this up there Daily Show here, it is your
Speaker 2: moment of Zen. John Stewart will be returning to the
Speaker 2: Daily Show, hosting it on Mondays and will be the
Speaker 2: executive producer. This is after Trevor Noah has exited the show.
Speaker 2: This is after, let's be honest, since he left, it's
Speaker 2: just been a disaster. It hasn't even come close to
Speaker 2: the cultural touchstone that it was under John Stewart. Trevor
Speaker 2: noh never was able to capture any of the energy.
Speaker 2: I think it was because Stuart at his best, at
Speaker 2: his best, and this is where I'm really curious, was
Speaker 2: able to skewer CNN, MSNBC and Fox. He was deaf,
Speaker 2: definitely a thorn in the side of Fox and Roger
Speaker 2: Ailes and all of them hated him. But seeing Inn
Speaker 2: and Am as soon as he hated him too, mainstream
Speaker 2: media because he made fun of them ruthlessly. He was
Speaker 2: He's liberal, obviously, you know, Krystal I interviewed him. You
Speaker 2: can go watch that a couple of years ago if
Speaker 2: you want to.
Speaker 3: But in the Trump era, he never was able to
Speaker 3: recapture some of that.
Speaker 2: So when Crystal and I interviewed him, for example, he
Speaker 2: would criticize the liberal media, but in a almost like
Speaker 2: a left perspective. He'd be like, well, you guys are
Speaker 2: obsessed with Trump too, and it's like, well, that's not
Speaker 2: really like what the criticism is, I guess per se.
Speaker 2: So do you think he will be able to bring
Speaker 2: the same magic that he had from the twenty tens
Speaker 2: to the current era, especially because we have lived through
Speaker 2: his Apple Show, and let's be honest, the Apple Show
Speaker 2: was not as good as a Daily Show. It just wasn't.
Speaker 4: But he even on his Apple Show he had moments
Speaker 4: where he's his interviewing technique, his style unparalleled. I agree,
Speaker 4: And he makes it look so easy too, which is
Speaker 4: an extra humiliation for the media, right because like, you
Speaker 4: see him do it, and the viewers like, well, this
Speaker 4: is just a comedian with using very very basic common
Speaker 4: sense language to just eviscerate this Larry summer Zoo or
Speaker 4: whoever it is, and you're like, well, I wish it.
Speaker 4: If it was that easy, he wouldn't be he wouldn't
Speaker 4: be who he is. One of the coolest things I
Speaker 4: ever did on a Valentine's that we went to in
Speaker 4: two thousands taping of the Daily Show. Oh interesting, Chris
Speaker 4: Rock was the guest.
Speaker 3: Wow, what year in two thousands, two thousand, Holy three,
Speaker 3: nine eleven.
Speaker 4: That's wild, it was.
Speaker 3: And I went to his rally when I was a
Speaker 3: freshman in college.
Speaker 2: I remember that rally. Hey, that was actually pretty fun.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed myself. Yeah, but the.
Speaker 4: Guys it will be. And he was like the conscience
Speaker 4: of the left in a way because he was against
Speaker 4: the Iraq War, and like it was back then, there
Speaker 4: was no social media to go to kind of connect
Speaker 4: with like minded people, so all you had was the
Speaker 4: mainstream media gaslighting you by telling you that there's weapons
Speaker 4: of mass destruction and we have to go to war,
Speaker 4: and we have to cut soul security and all of
Speaker 4: these other things. And the only kind of safe space,
Speaker 4: so to speak, was the Daily It was eleven o'clock,
Speaker 4: the Daily Show.
Speaker 2: You just watched it like I would watch it online
Speaker 2: back in you know those old viewers pre YouTube.
Speaker 3: I also, I was still in the clock. I don't
Speaker 3: even remember. I honestly, I never watched it live. I
Speaker 3: was I was living abroad.
Speaker 2: I was in high school at the time, and I
Speaker 2: you know, you'd have to fire up a VPN and
Speaker 2: then try and go watch it on the Comedy Central
Speaker 2: website and filter through all the crap ads of whatever
Speaker 2: looked like you O seven. But you're right, you know,
Speaker 2: because of opposition of the Iraq War and kind of
Speaker 2: that dissonance, he him and Vice were really at the center.
Speaker 3: But there's a cautionary tail there. Look advice today.
Speaker 2: And then also with Stuart, like you said, some of
Speaker 2: his interviews that he did, like with the veteran secretary
Speaker 2: or with at that woman at the Defense Department, I
Speaker 2: forget her name, the number two, Kathleen Hicks. I think
Speaker 2: where he humiliated her on like why can't you pass
Speaker 2: an audit? She was just so arrogant and annoying. He
Speaker 2: had a few and I mean he's done incredible work
Speaker 2: on nine to eleven firefighters, first responders, on the burn pits.
Speaker 2: He probably a single handedly is responsible for that. Let's
Speaker 2: put that aside. Though in terms of his monologues and commentary,
Speaker 2: it hasn't gone viral in the same way. So that's
Speaker 2: where I'm really curious to see.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because the problem that he's going to have is Okay,
Speaker 4: let's say he makes fun of Trump's I mean, let's
Speaker 4: say he makes fun of Biden for being super old,
Speaker 4: like he's easy stuff, right, and you know, everybody laugh.
Speaker 4: But on so many Democrats, we're like, that's but that's
Speaker 4: a but her emails.
Speaker 3: They can't handle that. Yeah, exactly, you're so that is
Speaker 3: so right.
Speaker 2: In the old days, he could make fun of Obama
Speaker 2: and there was not a predisposition of the liberal viewer
Speaker 2: to be like, that's racist, right, you know, but it
Speaker 2: was funny.
Speaker 3: It was just funny.
Speaker 4: The liberals consider the stakes so much higher today than
Speaker 4: when you know, Obama running against McCain or sighting. They
Speaker 4: see Trump as this kind of existential threat to everything
Speaker 4: that they hold dear, and therefore any criticism even that
Speaker 4: would even criticism and they're like, yes, that's true, I
Speaker 4: agree with you, but you should not say it right
Speaker 4: now because the threat outside the gate is so much greater.
Speaker 4: Where does that leave? And that's I think one reason
Speaker 4: he kind of left originally, He's like, where where does
Speaker 4: that leave a comedian who wants to skewer all sides.
Speaker 2: Part of the reason I'm sad that he's coming back
Speaker 2: is that linear TV is just not the same. I mean,
Speaker 2: he left in twenty fifteen, it was already on his
Speaker 2: way out, and now let's put this up there just
Speaker 2: to give people. An example, plus Can't Resist Donkey on CNN.
Speaker 2: CNN's ratings are now behind the History Channel and quote
Speaker 2: an obscure Western network in primetime ratings. They are struggling
Speaker 2: to get even half a million people total, not you know,
Speaker 2: in the Key demo to watch.
Speaker 3: That's insane. I mean it's like, I mean, at certain.
Speaker 2: Points, it's like a third of what we do here
Speaker 2: on like a daily basis, right, And that just demonstrates
Speaker 2: to you, like how much cultural cachet that they will have,
Speaker 2: you know, amongst the elites and all that, and how
Speaker 2: few people actually watch the network. It's all the right people.
Speaker 2: But in their defense that people will watch their stuff,
Speaker 2: yeah exactly. Well, no, you're exactly right, and that's not
Speaker 2: good for them, not always good for them, exactly. And
Speaker 2: the other thing is with Stuart is you know, at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, how they make their money
Speaker 2: there over at Comedy Central is people watching live right. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you want to play the YouTube game, which kind
Speaker 2: of what he was doing a little bit previously, that's fine,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot less money in that. It's it's
Speaker 2: a very different you know, environment and all of that.
Speaker 2: So I'm really curious to see what he does with this.
Speaker 2: The return of the Monday Night will be interesting. But
Speaker 2: even more interesting is what talent is he going to tap?
Speaker 2: You know, who is he going to have actually host
Speaker 2: or is he going to bring back a rotating cast
Speaker 2: of characters? And you know, that's what he was really
Speaker 2: really famous for doing, and he built such a talent.
Speaker 4: His talent basically every one of his correspondents became like
Speaker 4: a megastar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, John Oliver, I'm trying to think about the Beast Samantha. Yeah, well,
Speaker 2: some cautionary in tails there too, isn't there? Ryan?
Speaker 3: Anyway, we are I wish him nothing about the best.
Speaker 3: I love John Stewart.
Speaker 2: So he was a major inspiration to a lot of
Speaker 2: the work that Chris and I even initially, I remember
Speaker 2: we've started rising like and it started taking off. I
Speaker 2: was like, who are some people we can like look
Speaker 2: and model ourselves? Afterwards, Stewart's name was at the top
Speaker 2: of the list.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I've been trying to get him
Speaker 3: back here for a long time.
Speaker 2: So John, if you're listening, you were welcome back here
Speaker 2: anytime and we could talk and I'll ask you a
Speaker 2: many of these questions to your face. But otherwise we
Speaker 2: have a great guest standing by Emily Cop to talk
Speaker 2: about that Lablik reporting. Let's get to it. Joining us
Speaker 2: now is Emily Cop. She's a reporter at US right
Speaker 2: to know, she's done some of the best work that
Speaker 2: there is on the Lableek hypothesis on that investigation. She's
Speaker 2: joining us now for our latest report. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining us, Emily. Great to be here. Absolutely so.
Speaker 2: We've covered your work here for a long time, and
Speaker 2: we have one of your latest that we can put
Speaker 2: up there on the screen. Let's see it. US scientists
Speaker 2: proposed to make viruses with unique features of stars Kobe
Speaker 2: two in Wuhan.
Speaker 3: All right, so it's a headline of.
Speaker 2: Which is you know, we've got a little bit of
Speaker 2: some jargon in there, unique features stars Kobe two. I
Speaker 2: think that's COVID Wuhan. I think I'm a little bit familiar.
Speaker 2: Some of our viewers probably know. But just break this
Speaker 2: down for or the average person. They have a little
Speaker 2: bit of familiarity with COVID, with the lab leak and more.
Speaker 2: What did you find in this report?
Speaker 1: Sure, so it's a little bit of an understated headline.
Speaker 1: I'll give you that, but takeaway is origins of COVID
Speaker 1: solved question mark. Basically, what we found is that some
Speaker 1: of the most unusual features of the sarscovy two genome,
Speaker 1: the things that made sarskov two sars kov two the
Speaker 1: most pathogenic virus of the last one hundred years, were
Speaker 1: I mean, they're very rare in nature, but they were
Speaker 1: central to the esoteric research interests of the top coronavirus
Speaker 1: virologists in the world, Ralph Barrick and the top coronavirus
Speaker 1: collectors in the world, Peter Dazak and the.
Speaker 3: Wajuantitute of Virology.
Speaker 1: We also found that while these scientists told the US
Speaker 1: government that they were going to be doing this high
Speaker 1: risk virology at UNC under relatively strict biosafety protocol, they
Speaker 1: were at actually going to secretly be outsourcing much of
Speaker 1: this research to the Wuhanasitute of Virology under an inadequate
Speaker 1: biosafety level, essentially in order to save on costs and
Speaker 1: to be able to do the work more quickly. So
Speaker 1: you know, obviously that is very concerning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would say.
Speaker 4: So let's talk about the Alex Washburn at All pre
Speaker 4: print that kind of led that led to this reporting
Speaker 4: that you did, And so we can go back to
Speaker 4: Bob Gary too, who was a Tulane University virologist who
Speaker 4: people might recall was involved in this that first kind
Speaker 4: of famous now infamous conference call with Anthony Fauci February
Speaker 4: second or fourth or whatever between the first and the fourth,
Speaker 4: where the virologists all at the beginning are leaning towards
Speaker 4: a lab leak, and by the end of it are
Speaker 4: pronouncing and organizing public statements and articles saying that there
Speaker 4: couldn't have been a lab leak, and everybody is crazy
Speaker 4: who thinks it is. So Bob Gary at the time
Speaker 4: observed the makeup of COVID nineteen and identified some unusual
Speaker 4: features of it, which takes us to the washburn paper.
Speaker 4: So what did Bob Gary find and how important was
Speaker 4: that to your reporting?
Speaker 1: Sure, So I'll start out with what is I think
Speaker 1: indisputable at this point from our reporting, and then I'll
Speaker 1: get into the more controversial stuff. So the stuff that's
Speaker 1: indisputable is that the scientists working with the Wuhan Institute
Speaker 1: of Virology were interested in making engineered viruses in the
Speaker 1: lab and testing whether they could infect human receptors. And
Speaker 1: they're so called gold standard would be to identify viruses
Speaker 1: that could cause disease. They were also knowledgeable about two
Speaker 1: things that could essentially supercharge a coronavirus into that gold
Speaker 1: standard of something that could cause disease in human humanized mice.
Speaker 1: And those two features were I fear in cleavage site
Speaker 1: at the S one S two junction of the spike protein,
Speaker 1: and a receptor binding domain that was very good at
Speaker 1: latching on to a receptor called ACE two. And when
Speaker 1: sars kov two first came out, those virologists who initially
Speaker 1: said privately, oh, no, this looks engineered, and then came
Speaker 1: out with a paper that said, if you think that
Speaker 1: this is engineered, you're crazy. They were privately very concerned
Speaker 1: about these two features if you're in cleavage site at
Speaker 1: the S one S two and the fact that it
Speaker 1: was sort of immediately very good at infecting human cells.
Speaker 1: And so the documents that we obtained show they lay
Speaker 1: out their plan to create a model where they could
Speaker 1: create engineered viruses with these features that we later see
Speaker 1: in SARS Kobe two, but that are exceedingly rare in nature,
Speaker 1: so that all is.
Speaker 3: Indisputable at this point.
Speaker 1: I think there have been people, you know, people like
Speaker 1: Robert Gary who have really nitpicked and said, well, it's
Speaker 1: not a fear and cleavage saite at the S one
Speaker 1: S two, it's a fear and cleavage side at the
Speaker 1: S one or S two. But you know, the new
Speaker 1: documents we obtained make it very explicit that they were
Speaker 1: interested in precisely viruses like source Kobe two. The Alex
Speaker 1: Washburn paper that you mentioned around restriction sites, I think
Speaker 1: that's a little bit more controversial and requires a little
Speaker 1: bit more scientific inquiry. But what they found in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two is that a pattern of restriction sites. And
Speaker 1: restriction sites are essentially little bits of code that occur
Speaker 1: in the genome that can be used in the lab
Speaker 1: to enginr new viruses, but they also can occur naturally.
Speaker 1: But what they found they did statistics around how likely
Speaker 1: is it that we would see this precise pattern, and
Speaker 1: they found it to be very unlikely. And so the
Speaker 1: new documents that we have, i mean, confirm their intention
Speaker 1: to create synthetic viruses with these restriction enzymes in six pieces,
Speaker 1: which is what the Washburn paper found, And they also
Speaker 1: include a budget line for one of these specific restricts, right.
Speaker 4: Let's talk stop there and talk talking about that. So
Speaker 4: the paper says, okay, there's these six different you know,
Speaker 4: whatever they are, and they basically predicted, Okay, if you
Speaker 4: were going to do this, what you would need would
Speaker 4: be this one particular enzyme of thousands of enzymes commercially
Speaker 4: that are available to do this research. And what you
Speaker 4: found is that they in fact did purchase that enzyme
Speaker 4: and did use this, you know, which suggests that they're
Speaker 4: doing the exact thing that was predicted. So not only
Speaker 4: do you have a regression analysis that shows the chance
Speaker 4: of this being formed naturally is infinitesimally small, but then
Speaker 4: they add a prediction on top of it that you
Speaker 4: would need this particular enzyme, and the chance that they
Speaker 4: actually then purchased that and it all being a coincidence
Speaker 4: takes it from infinitesimally small to me two impossible to
Speaker 4: be anything other than a smoking gun. So why is
Speaker 4: it still considered somewhat controversial even among you know, some
Speaker 4: people who have always who have recently been said, yeah,
Speaker 4: I believe I lean toward a.
Speaker 3: Lab leak, but I want to see more scientific inquiry
Speaker 3: on this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's sort of hard for us lay
Speaker 1: people to evaluate because it does require knowledge of statistics
Speaker 1: and of bioengineering. So the number of people who can
Speaker 1: really evaluate these claims, I think is pretty small. But
Speaker 1: some scientists who are a bit more skeptical, like Alena Chan,
Speaker 1: they basically point to other viruses in nature that are
Speaker 1: very similar to Sara Kobe to having similar restriction sites.
Speaker 3: Then you get kind of.
Speaker 1: Another layer of complexity, which is that there is a
Speaker 1: debate about how many silent mutations you would see around
Speaker 1: these sites in nature versus in the lab. And so
Speaker 1: I think that's something that scientists need to douke out.
Speaker 1: I think another I guess, just a cautionary word I've heard,
Speaker 1: is that Ralph Barrick, this Corona virologist who was working
Speaker 1: very closely with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He was
Speaker 1: known for doing this sort of work without any of
Speaker 1: these sort of markings, without leaving the restriction sites in
Speaker 1: He patented no Sum technology, no Sum being the name
Speaker 1: of a insect in North Carolina where he's based. So
Speaker 1: it's almost unusual to find a pattern like this if
Speaker 1: we expect it to be Barrack's idea that the.
Speaker 2: Wuhan lab was working with Yeah, I mean, what's really
Speaker 2: concerns Manly is I've never believed, obviously in natural origin.
Speaker 2: But let me ask you, then, chrisal often does this,
Speaker 2: how would you steal man?
Speaker 3: You know, your reporting?
Speaker 2: What natural origin hypothesis at this point even bear scrutiny
Speaker 2: for a seasoned healthcare reporter like yourself? What would the
Speaker 2: you know? The critics critics say in response to this,
Speaker 2: I know I feel the same way. That's why I'm
Speaker 2: asking you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think the possible coincidence of the pandemic
Speaker 1: first being detected at the wet market that I think
Speaker 1: that story still hasn't been told. How is it that
Speaker 1: that was the first place where we started detecting cases.
Speaker 1: I think the idea that early cases clustered around the
Speaker 1: wet market is based on a really bad analysis. I
Speaker 1: think the idea that spillover occurred at that market is
Speaker 1: based on an analysis that was recently recently.
Speaker 3: Suffered a major correct correction.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's hard, but I do, you know, I'll give
Speaker 1: it to my opponents, I guess and say that I
Speaker 1: think it is hard to explain, just given the information
Speaker 1: that we have, the limited information, why it was the
Speaker 1: wet market that you know where we first Can.
Speaker 2: We just say that, well, yeah, that's where the Chinese
Speaker 2: first report of the cases. I mean, they're the ones
Speaker 2: who are responsible for you know, they control the information
Speaker 2: that we get, not like not vice versa. It's not
Speaker 2: necessarily organic.
Speaker 1: Continuing to like occupy the mind space of the urologies
Speaker 1: who think are a natural origin. I would say some
Speaker 1: of the first people who detected the pandemic were doctors
Speaker 1: in Wuhan, you know. I would also say I've done
Speaker 1: reporting showing that the doctors in Wuhan were censored very
Speaker 1: heavily and face a lot of retaliation for early reporting.
Speaker 1: So whether that early reporting is actually reflective of the
Speaker 1: earliest cases, I'm not competent in that great point.
Speaker 4: And so I mean, given the documents you've obtained in
Speaker 4: the work that you've done, right now, news outlets are
Speaker 4: busy submitting their different articles for Pulitzers. You know, I
Speaker 4: think I don't even know if US Rights Know is
Speaker 4: eligible for a Pulitzer. I think you deserve one for
Speaker 4: the work you've been doing on this. Thank you, But
Speaker 4: I'm I'm curious what it's been like to see so
Speaker 4: little mainstream media follow up on this reporting, because we're
Speaker 4: talking about a pandemic that killed at least twenty five
Speaker 4: million people. Correct me if I'm wrong here, up ended
Speaker 4: our geopolitics, up bend at our politics, our economy. The
Speaker 4: number of people who are suffering from you know, having
Speaker 4: lived through COVID, you know, on on and on is
Speaker 4: just the damage is incalculable. And the evidence points to
Speaker 4: a small group of people breaking rules because you know,
Speaker 4: the Obama administration had put in place restrictions around this
Speaker 4: type of research that they went around in order in
Speaker 4: order to do this small group of people we're talking
Speaker 4: fewer than a dozen, perhaps doing something not on purpose,
Speaker 4: you know, but recklessly knowing that it was a possibility.
Speaker 4: Anthony Fauci in twenty fourteen said, you know, the potential
Speaker 4: risks outweigh the outwagh the benefits of this type of research.
Speaker 4: I think that's absurd given the costs that we've endured.
Speaker 4: So what's been like from your perspective to see so
Speaker 4: little follow up at this point? The New York Times,
Speaker 4: if you only read the New York Times, you believe
Speaker 4: that it's open and shutcase, and it came out inatural order,
Speaker 4: came out of that and you're racist, and it was
Speaker 4: a bad and then it was a raccoon dog and yeah,
Speaker 4: so what's been like to know the opposite and to
Speaker 4: watch this unfold? I mean, it's maddening.
Speaker 1: It makes me feel like I'm losing it a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think some of the things that
Speaker 1: are at player are the same things that are making
Speaker 1: this show so popular. I think the mainstream media is
Speaker 1: becoming culturally irrelevant, and to me, I think my theory
Speaker 1: just kind of coming out of the health reporting space
Speaker 1: and knowing kind of the culture, and some of the
Speaker 1: editors who are running the health and science desks at
Speaker 1: these major outlets, I think they're friends with Fauci, to
Speaker 1: be honest, I think it's just personal relationships and they
Speaker 1: really admire him, and I think they have a hard
Speaker 1: time grasping the idea that someone who had good intentions
Speaker 1: and who might not be a bad person might have
Speaker 1: made a catastrophic error in judgment.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, to me, the smoker, if you'll remember
Speaker 2: Donald McNeil, who worked for The Times. He got fired.
Speaker 2: It was a bunch of controversy and he came out
Speaker 2: later and he's like, look, I didn't believe it because
Speaker 2: I was friends with these guys. He literally said that
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 4: We have the emails of them, like directly lying.
Speaker 2: He came out and is like, I've known Anthony Founci
Speaker 2: and Peter Dazak for thirty years. I believe them, And
Speaker 2: he's like, and they misled me. And he's open about it.
Speaker 2: But he can only be open about it because he's
Speaker 2: no longer within the system. So I guess, finally, you know,
Speaker 2: we can bring this. You've effectively solve the case for us.
Speaker 3: But what else is there?
Speaker 2: Like, you're obviously going to continue on the story. What
Speaker 2: other things are you going to potentially inquiring? Can our
Speaker 2: audience help you? What can people point you in the
Speaker 2: right direction?
Speaker 1: Well, your audience can definitely, you know, follow us obviously.
Speaker 1: I think we're punching up above our weight, but we're
Speaker 1: not the New York Times, so that every little bit
Speaker 1: helps every follower, every subscriber to our newsletter. I think
Speaker 1: next steps this, you know, latest document set I think
Speaker 1: lays out how SARSCOV two probably got its unique features,
Speaker 1: but we still don't have the starting genomic sequence. And
Speaker 1: even the guys, you know, the virologists who very strongly
Speaker 1: favor a natural origin. Have said a smoking gun would
Speaker 1: be identifying that virus in that lab in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: So I think if we can confirm that they were
Speaker 1: doing this experimentation with fear and cleavage sites with receptor
Speaker 1: binding domains that strong or that binds strongly to ACE two,
Speaker 1: with something like sars Kobe two, that would be I
Speaker 1: mean game over, like truly game over and disputably got it.
Speaker 4: So I think also one thing the audience could not
Speaker 4: do is jump in and be like I always knew
Speaker 4: this from day one, such a you sliss point to
Speaker 4: make stop it, because even if we definitely did, even
Speaker 4: if yeah, it's dismissive of all of the great works
Speaker 4: that so many journalists have done to confirm your hunch,
Speaker 4: that your hunch, I'm sorry, yeah, YouTube, audience, your hunch
Speaker 4: is not worth much.
Speaker 2: That's right now, He's all right, He's right, And this
Speaker 2: is why we need you to do the work that
Speaker 2: you continue to do so people can follow you on Twitter.
Speaker 3: What's the most helpful way people can help you.
Speaker 1: I think subscribing to our newsletter US right to now
Speaker 1: okay are most helpful.
Speaker 2: We'll have the link down that in the description. Everybody
Speaker 2: will also support Emily's work, follow her on Twitter, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and we will see you guys later