Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
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Speaker 1: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: breaking an extraordinary news right now. President Donald J. Trump,
Speaker 1: former President of the United States. Attorney Susan Nechls has
Speaker 1: now confirmed that President Trump was indicted today in New
Speaker 1: York by Manhattan DA. They have not yet told us
Speaker 1: exactly what the charge is, although we can likely surmise
Speaker 1: that it involves the hush pun money payment made to
Speaker 1: Stormy Daniels of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. So
Speaker 1: we'll first put the breaking news up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: It was first reported by the New York Times, quickly
Speaker 1: confirmed by all media outlets as well as President Trump's
Speaker 1: legal team. Now let's go to the second one here.
Speaker 1: What exactly is all of this and what's going on
Speaker 1: for those who are just joining us as to why
Speaker 1: such an indictment might have even happened. All of it
Speaker 1: comes back to the one hundred and thirty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: hush money payment made from Donald Trump and his lawyer
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen to Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged
Speaker 1: tryst between the two of them in two thousand and
Speaker 1: six that happened in Lake Tahoe. So you can go
Speaker 1: and read the details of that if you're interested elsewhere.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into it. But effectively, all
Speaker 1: of this came to light in twenty and eighteen in
Speaker 1: a felony case against Michael Cohen in which federal prosecutors
Speaker 1: alleged that that one hundred and thirty thousand dollars payment
Speaker 1: was illegally recorded as a personal payment from the Trump
Speaker 1: organization to Michael Cohen for legal services, when it might
Speaker 1: have had instead to do with the campaign finance violation. Basically,
Speaker 1: the allegation was that the only reason that they were
Speaker 1: paying this one hundred and thirty thousand dollars was not
Speaker 1: for the personal embarrassment that Trump would have suffered, but
Speaker 1: because it would have damaged it twenty sixteen campaign. Thus,
Speaker 1: they should have recorded it properly. Cohen pled guilty to
Speaker 1: that charge, but ultimately no charge was actually brought against Trump.
Speaker 1: Now how does that relate to New York state law. Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a step back and realize that the actual
Speaker 1: charge here is not only do we know that Trump
Speaker 1: was indicted in the Manhattan by the Manhattan Grand jury,
Speaker 1: but also he was indicted with the felony. So what
Speaker 1: does that mean. Now, the only real charge here that
Speaker 1: makes sense. We don't have a confirmation of this, but
Speaker 1: peer speculation out is a falsifying business wreckers or felony
Speaker 1: bookkeeping fraud under Article one seventy five of the New
Speaker 1: York Penal Law. Now, a conviction for felony bookkeeping fraud
Speaker 1: in the state of New York carries a sentence of
Speaker 1: up to four years. But to prove that it's actually
Speaker 1: going to be pretty difficult. So what do they have
Speaker 1: to prove to be a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
Speaker 1: Prosecutors have to show Trump falsified the business records with
Speaker 1: the intention of committing, aiding, or concealing a second crime.
Speaker 1: So then we have to ask what was the second crime. Well,
Speaker 1: they are thinking of invoking that alleged campaign finance violation
Speaker 1: that I already described. The problem is is that federal
Speaker 1: election law is by definition going to be governed by
Speaker 1: federal law. So since that second crime was never actually convicted,
Speaker 1: and it's not even a state campaign law technically that
Speaker 1: Trump would have violated, then how is he going to
Speaker 1: prove felony? Now, again, it was enough to convince a
Speaker 1: grand jury, so maybe it's possible. It's you know, maybe
Speaker 1: he has non publican evidence of some other intended offense
Speaker 1: that is around this, like if there was any intention
Speaker 1: to deduct the payments as a business expense on the
Speaker 1: state tax return. That also could be one that they
Speaker 1: were looking for bookkeeping fraud itself as a two year
Speaker 1: statue of limitations misdemeanor, and the statute of limitations also
Speaker 1: expires after five years, including taking into consideration the time
Speaker 1: that Trump went out of state. So overall, that's basically
Speaker 1: from the people that we've spoken to the lawyer that
Speaker 1: we had on our show, Brad Moss, to discuss this
Speaker 1: novel theory of the case never been tried before in
Speaker 1: New York before a judge, so very quickly we know
Speaker 1: that Trump himself will easily be able to contest some
Speaker 1: of this far before it gets to trial. Even if
Speaker 1: it does so, it's very possible that a judge could
Speaker 1: throw it out. Now, in terms of also the optics,
Speaker 1: now here's what we know they're going to by the
Speaker 1: time that they release the Act, by the time they
Speaker 1: released the indictment before the public, they will have not
Speaker 1: only notified the lawyer, they will have negotiated some sort
Speaker 1: of either surrender or release or you know, it also
Speaker 1: sets up politically here will there be a standoff, will
Speaker 1: he refuse to be extradited? What will Ron DeSantis say?
Speaker 1: What will all of President Trump's quote unquote opponents in
Speaker 1: the race say about this indictment? And then politically, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just extraordinary, which he's a former president of the
Speaker 1: United States, He's now been indicted in the state of
Speaker 1: New York. What is the major Democratic party going to say?
Speaker 1: What are the Fulton County Grand Jury? How will it
Speaker 1: impact all these federal investigations. So there's a myriad of
Speaker 1: different things. Also, you know, do have to say that
Speaker 1: clearly there seems to have been some sort of scheduling
Speaker 1: fake out because the schedule originally was not known to
Speaker 1: the press. Not only that they had told everybody that
Speaker 1: they were disbanding for an entire month and going out
Speaker 1: of town, leaving a lot of them, including us you
Speaker 1: know this morning talking about how it seemed that they
Speaker 1: may be skipping town. But it seems that, you know,
Speaker 1: this was all done in secret. Possibly the feint was
Speaker 1: to fake out everybody to think that they had gone
Speaker 1: home and they weren't going to be doing anything before
Speaker 1: they ultimately did so. Look an absolutely absolutely extraordinary act.
Speaker 1: Here done my best to synthesize both what happened, why
Speaker 1: it happened, the potential impact, the politics, and all of that.
Speaker 1: Let's all just take a step back and see what
Speaker 1: extraordinary actions come in the coming days. But history is
Speaker 1: being made right before our eyes, and I guess things
Speaker 1: are just going to get interesting. Thank you all to
Speaker 1: our premium subscribers who are signing up at Breakingpoints dot com,
Speaker 1: watching the full video on Spotify and all that. We
Speaker 1: love you all. Thank you for making it so that
Speaker 1: me and the staff can get these things turned around
Speaker 1: very quickly. For breaking news videos and we'll continue to
Speaker 1: keep you guys updated. Thanks. Lots of discussion around COVID
Speaker 1: and profiteering some of it on the drug companies, and
Speaker 1: they certainly did make billions and billions of dollars, but
Speaker 1: they're not the only ones who profited. New Forms magazine piece.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: Meet the forty billionaires who got rich fighting COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1: Fighting is one way to put it. Certainly, a lot
Speaker 1: of these people are just Chinese, and many of them
Speaker 1: are consumer products manufacturers who quote made billions of masks
Speaker 1: and millions millions of protective overalls and gowns for healthcare workers.
Speaker 1: We should remember that one of the problems with personal
Speaker 1: protective equipment the PPE in the early days that we
Speaker 1: didn't know how to manufacture any of it. So it's great, actually, Crystal,
Speaker 1: we created multiple Chinese billionaires who made them for us
Speaker 1: while we bought them instead of manufacturing themselves. Glad at
Speaker 1: least they got made somewhere. Yeah. Cool, that really worked
Speaker 1: out well for us. Not a surprise that the CEOs
Speaker 1: and several executives at Maderna, at Pfizer, and at Biotech
Speaker 1: all became billionaires off of the COVID nineteen vaccine. But
Speaker 1: really what stuns me is it's like, look, we've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about the pharmaceutical companies that have made billions,
Speaker 1: but really what came away from this was every single
Speaker 1: person who became a billionaire fighting COVID from a from
Speaker 1: a supply perspective, and from a health technology perspective. Not
Speaker 1: one of them lived in the United States. Every single
Speaker 1: one was in China. COVID nineteen test manufacturer China, Medical
Speaker 1: equipment China, Personal protective Equipment China. And first of all,
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as a real billionaire in China. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're one of those where the CCP is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're allowed to become a billionaire in this category, and
Speaker 1: you got to cough up and do whatever we tell you.
Speaker 1: But second, I'm like, why do we not do any
Speaker 1: of this ourselves? You know? It's every let me read
Speaker 1: you this one that health it the founder of the
Speaker 1: healthcare tech firm, which uses AI and big data to
Speaker 1: help cities conduct contract tracing and coordinate China. It's like,
Speaker 1: in every case, even in the pharmaceutical many of these
Speaker 1: people came from China. From the inputs into the vaccines itself.
Speaker 1: Do we just make nothing anymore? Like? Not one person
Speaker 1: on this list from the US had anything to do
Speaker 1: with manufacturing. It was only with respect to biotech from
Speaker 1: the Pfizer vaccine. That's all we apparently are good at
Speaker 1: is using government backed resources to make a vaccine that
Speaker 1: they didn't even use. Yeah, or sorry that they didn't
Speaker 1: even make. They didn't even do any of the research, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to say things like this make
Speaker 1: me more and more radicalized of the number of industry
Speaker 1: that should just be like straight up nationalized or at
Speaker 1: least a very heavy government involvement. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially if you look at the vaccines, how much was
Speaker 1: the government involved and did a good job spinning things
Speaker 1: up quickly. But then it's you know, we do we
Speaker 1: fund all the research and not just in that moment,
Speaker 1: but over years, and then all the profit goes to
Speaker 1: these like new billionaires. And then yeah, because we have
Speaker 1: stripped our manufacturing base over decades, when we have a
Speaker 1: crisis such as this, and it's like, oh, we need
Speaker 1: masks for our frontline caregivers, and we need other ppe,
Speaker 1: and we need these ingredients to make these vaccines, and
Speaker 1: we need, you know, to have capability to spit it up.
Speaker 1: We just don't have it. It just isn't there, so
Speaker 1: there's no other choice, and so you become completely dependent
Speaker 1: on a country that you know, like it or not.
Speaker 1: We increasingly have an adversarial relationship with not a great
Speaker 1: state of affairs. So it it was really really exposed
Speaker 1: just how incredibly vulnerable we have made ourselves on every
Speaker 1: front by not valuing the basic capacity to make things
Speaker 1: that are essential for daily survival at this point. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's just totally ridiculous. Like reading this, I did that
Speaker 1: monologue recently about how to become a billionaire in America,
Speaker 1: and the point that I made was in the third
Speaker 1: world countries that what they were not basically second world
Speaker 1: at this point, they become billionaires off of building things.
Speaker 1: We are billionaires off financialization and you know, biotech, which
Speaker 1: is basically using government backed research to manufacturer and then
Speaker 1: get legal monopoly with immunity and all of that from
Speaker 1: the government. To become a billionaire, tell me which one
Speaker 1: you prefer, Like, how do you want your people to
Speaker 1: actually get rich, Because they all got rich by producing
Speaker 1: stuff in labs, building things in manufacture facilities and shipping
Speaker 1: and doing business and hard assets. We don't have any
Speaker 1: of that. It's all conceptual. It's all just like moving
Speaker 1: money around in a new exotic way, right. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: the Indians too in same thing, manufacturing, manufacturing, manufacturing and
Speaker 1: all their generic drug makers and all of that which
Speaker 1: deliver an actually cheap product to their billion citizens. You know,
Speaker 1: that's how you really should be able to deliver value.
Speaker 1: None of what we are our people. Every person on
Speaker 1: our list is just some biotech manufacturer or sorry, some
Speaker 1: biotech executive involved in the vaccine process itself. You tell
Speaker 1: me what you want. Absolutely fascinating development with Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: Steve Wozniak and a number of other tech leaders coming
Speaker 1: out and saying we need a moratorium right now on
Speaker 1: AI development. So let's go and put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen, the open letter, which was distributed with
Speaker 1: about eleven hundred signatories. To be clear, you know, some
Speaker 1: people dispute that they didn't understand what they were signing,
Speaker 1: but Elon and Steve Wozniak's signatures are not in dispute
Speaker 1: here at all. Say that technology companies need to cease
Speaker 1: AI training systems that would be more powerful than the
Speaker 1: latest large language processing system, not as GPT four. So
Speaker 1: AI power, they say, tends to correlate with the model
Speaker 1: size and the number of specialized computer chips that are
Speaker 1: needed to train it. They're outspoken in their concerns about
Speaker 1: AI as a threat to humanity. And really what it
Speaker 1: comes back to is that we shouldn't forget that Elon
Speaker 1: was actually an original founder of open ai and decided
Speaker 1: to leave the organization because he didn't think that they
Speaker 1: were developing in the right direction. Since then, he has
Speaker 1: actually warned about censorship within the AI open ai chatch
Speaker 1: ept platform and what he's been pointing to. The reason
Speaker 1: I found this really interesting is this is a big
Speaker 1: split in technology right now. A lot of people are
Speaker 1: i wouldn't say AI purists, or they're excited about the
Speaker 1: developments of AI. They're excited about the computational and you
Speaker 1: can't help but be. But then there are others, you know,
Speaker 1: more visionary founders, people like him and others who have
Speaker 1: been warning about what some of the dangers are and
Speaker 1: they say, hey, we need to develop rules around this,
Speaker 1: We need to develop some sort of protocol about how
Speaker 1: we would approach these very tricky political questions. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure where I fall. I'm curious what you think, like
Speaker 1: if you think about the original development of social media
Speaker 1: because nobody knew how it was, what it was going
Speaker 1: to do. We didn't have preset rules around the First
Speaker 1: Amendment or other principles, but set us up for disasters
Speaker 1: in the future, right, So maybe it would make sense like, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're in the burgeoning stages. Let's set the agreed upon
Speaker 1: thing and let's not deviate from it for when the
Speaker 1: inevitability comes. They're like, look, this is the standard. This
Speaker 1: is what we've all agreed upon. I tend to be
Speaker 1: sympathetic to the idea of, hey, let's have a pause
Speaker 1: and figure out what the hell this means, because this
Speaker 1: is unfolding incredibly quickly, and the ramifications of it are
Speaker 1: far reaching in terms of the labor market, in terms
Speaker 1: of like information distribution, in terms of things that we
Speaker 1: aren't in terms of newscapt like everything. This is a
Speaker 1: small example, but there's just recently this picture of the
Speaker 1: pope that went y had like a puffy jacket on fun.
Speaker 1: Everyone thought this thing was real. Oh really, Oh I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. It was initial to me fake Initially,
Speaker 1: like this thing was widespread and it looks super real
Speaker 1: and obviously it's minor and of no consequence, but it
Speaker 1: shows you were already at that level where there can
Speaker 1: be you know, pictures, images, videos, information that goes down
Speaker 1: that is wildly inaccurate, that gets taken up and consumed
Speaker 1: really quickly. Again, this is a small example. I thought
Speaker 1: one piece of Elon's concern about the direction of open
Speaker 1: ai actually did a monologue on this and I thought
Speaker 1: was really well founded, which is like he says, when
Speaker 1: I signed up to be co founder of open ai,
Speaker 1: the idea was open like open to the public, transparent,
Speaker 1: open source, and now in nonprofit. Now they've sold this
Speaker 1: off to Microsoft to use it to you know, profit them,
Speaker 1: probably at the expense of everybody else, because that's the
Speaker 1: way that these developments mostly work. We saw from the
Speaker 1: TikTok hearings. We may love to live in a world
Speaker 1: where our legislators are like really super on it and
Speaker 1: with it about what this is and what it means
Speaker 1: and how to regulate and wrap their arms around it.
Speaker 1: But we all know that that is not the case.
Speaker 1: So the idea of not saying, all right, we got
Speaker 1: to shut this down, but let's have a pause, let's
Speaker 1: think about what this means, let's think about where this
Speaker 1: is going, and let's be intentional about it from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Given how fast this is all developing. To me, I'm
Speaker 1: very sympathetic to that poside, right, I am as well.
Speaker 1: I also just don't know if it's going to be private.
Speaker 1: At the look the name of technology that people were like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's hit pause on this. It never happens, like unless
Speaker 1: the government comes in and is like, listen, this is
Speaker 1: the way it's going to be. Voluntarily, somebody will just
Speaker 1: depart from the consensus and then they'll get all of
Speaker 1: the benefits. So it's kind of a prisoner's dilemma. Yeah, Honestly,
Speaker 1: I just think it's going to happen regardless. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that if there's anything that we can do about it.
Speaker 1: By the way, I don't even believe some of the
Speaker 1: hype around it. They're like, oh, it's going to replace
Speaker 1: all white collar work. I'm like, maybe some you know,
Speaker 1: maybe something. But my point is we'll see, Like we
Speaker 1: should have also some hubris about how much technology or
Speaker 1: this type of technology actually can fully replace some things.
Speaker 1: It can automate a lot, and I think that's great.
Speaker 1: You know. I saw one example of somebody put in
Speaker 1: their blood work and open AI was a chat GPT
Speaker 1: was better than their doctor. I'm like, okay, that's great,
Speaker 1: but like that's not the reason that people go to
Speaker 1: the doctor, you know what I mean, Like they're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to like sit there and so
Speaker 1: open your eye. Maybe maybe we can get to that,
Speaker 1: but there's still a lot of finesse in things that
Speaker 1: still that you're going to require at least some human input,
Speaker 1: like the raw input output like a for example, like
Speaker 1: a diagnosis is very different from like emotional therapy or
Speaker 1: you know, many of the other things that people even
Speaker 1: go to the doctor use medicine in the first place.
Speaker 1: So that's part of what Kevin Russe, yeah, talks about
Speaker 1: the type reporter for the New York Times who wrote
Speaker 1: a book about where some of this is going right,
Speaker 1: and he said, you know, it's easy to discount how
Speaker 1: much we sort of have a bias towards humanity. Where
Speaker 1: how are you going to feel about, for example, like
Speaker 1: a work of art that you know was crafted by
Speaker 1: human with all of their complex emotions and backstory and
Speaker 1: all of that, versus something that was spit out by AI.
Speaker 1: You're not going to have perhaps the same emotional reaction
Speaker 1: to those things. That's one example. The other example is like,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked to Starbucks, Barisis who are organizing.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I could certainly imagine a coffee shop where everything
Speaker 1: was automated. You punch in your thing, it does your
Speaker 1: order whatever. But in reality, that's not the whole reason.
Speaker 1: People are not just going to their favorite coffee shop
Speaker 1: because they like the coffee. That's part of it. Part
Speaker 1: of it is you like that little exchange with the
Speaker 1: person that you see every morning, and being in the
Speaker 1: line with the other people who are going through their
Speaker 1: routine as well, Like the humanity of it is part
Speaker 1: of what you were buying in that experience. And so
Speaker 1: I agree with you that perhaps some of the most
Speaker 1: maximus claims about what this means in the short term
Speaker 1: I am also skeptical of. But I'm also open to
Speaker 1: the idea that even some of the small changes, like
Speaker 1: for example, in the news business, could in and of
Speaker 1: themselves be tranching. Yeah, we can still acknowledge titanic change. Well,
Speaker 1: also being like, hey, let's not take it too far.
Speaker 1: I mean, I always use example, but you know, self
Speaker 1: driving is a good example. So like, for example, if
Speaker 1: you've ever in a Tesla and they're on full self
Speaker 1: driving and you're exiting off of the highway right, well,
Speaker 1: it will slow down to like thirty miles per hour
Speaker 1: on the ramp. Who actually goes thirty miles an hour? Nobody?
Speaker 1: And actually, whenever it fully slows down, you're now a
Speaker 1: danger to everybody in traffic because the flow of the
Speaker 1: flow of traffic is seventy not thirty. But technically it's
Speaker 1: like we got to go to the speed and then
Speaker 1: you manually will have to change it back up. It's
Speaker 1: actually pretty weird. And or you know, when you turn left,
Speaker 1: who actually makes a right angle left turn? Everybody cuts
Speaker 1: the line right, but the AI doesn't want to cut
Speaker 1: the line because that's against the rules. Or if you're
Speaker 1: in a tunnel and there's like there's like green lights
Speaker 1: or whatever, they'll be like, oh, it's emergency light. They
Speaker 1: are all these little things and you're like, oh okay,
Speaker 1: Like there's a reason that humans, you know, humans drive
Speaker 1: like we drive very differently. Technically the speed limit is
Speaker 1: this what idiot goes to speed limit when the flow
Speaker 1: of traffic is sixty five miles an hour and a
Speaker 1: forty mile zone. That's the perfect thing that you computing
Speaker 1: that or like changing that that's very, very difficult to solve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just don't see it yet. Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we'll keep looking at it because it is
Speaker 1: a fascinating debate. Low glimpse into our future. Sure, there
Speaker 1: you go. Joining me now is my old friend Amber Athey.
Speaker 1: She's the Washington editor at The Spectator, and she's the
Speaker 1: author of a new book, Let's go and put it
Speaker 1: up there on the screen, The Snowflakes Revolt, How woke
Speaker 1: Millennials hijacked American media. Amber's an old friend of mine,
Speaker 1: as I said, and then also a former member of
Speaker 1: the White House Correspondent, and she witnessed both of us
Speaker 1: some interesting shenanigans inside the press briefing room at the
Speaker 1: time that I thought the audience would be interested in.
Speaker 1: So welcome to the show. Amber, It's good to see you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good to see you two Saga. Thanks for having me. Yes,
Speaker 1: all right, So let's dig into a little bit. We
Speaker 1: were talking a little bit before about the WHCA and
Speaker 1: what we can get into how the entire system is
Speaker 1: rigged something our audience is really interested in. What do
Speaker 1: you talk about in the book and what did you
Speaker 1: witness there that you saw. Yeah. Absolutely, I'm actually still
Speaker 1: a member of the WHTA. Believe it or not. They
Speaker 1: haven't provoked my credentials yet. I know. It's truly amazing.
Speaker 1: But what we uncovered, and you know what I write
Speaker 1: about in the book, is the fact that the entire
Speaker 1: system of the WHDA is set up to benefit establishment
Speaker 1: and corporate media outlets. And for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: most of the access that's given to reporters in that
Speaker 1: White House Briefing Room is given to them by the WHDA.
Speaker 1: It's not an administration decision. So this is something that
Speaker 1: cuts across all political parties in terms of who's actually
Speaker 1: in office. The WHDA is responsible for deciding, for example,
Speaker 1: who gets permanent seats in the briefing room. And it
Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise anyone, I think, to hear that the corporate
Speaker 1: big outlets get the first two rows, which are of
Speaker 1: course the rows that guarantee you a question, and everybody
Speaker 1: else is either relegated to the back of the room
Speaker 1: or in our case Saga, we actually had to stand
Speaker 1: in the aisle and just pray that the Press Secretary
Speaker 1: could see us around all the cameras and all the
Speaker 1: other clowns who were in the briefing room on any
Speaker 1: given day. Yeah, so it was a real pain. We've
Speaker 1: both worked through it. But the system, you know, itself,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be so difficult for somebody who's not traditionally
Speaker 1: in the corporate media to be able to get a
Speaker 1: question in there. I mean, how does the book and
Speaker 1: itself some of the stuff that you uncovered just align
Speaker 1: with some of the media coverage that we found so
Speaker 1: frustrating at that time. Yeah. Well, I think the major
Speaker 1: problem in the media is that it's become an echo
Speaker 1: chamber filled with people who all basically have the same background.
Speaker 1: And this goes back to the credentialing system that was
Speaker 1: implemented in the mid nineteen hundreds. One of the major
Speaker 1: problems with the underlying journalistic ethos of objectivity is that
Speaker 1: they also decided at that time that you had to
Speaker 1: have some type of higher education in order to be objective.
Speaker 1: You had to have basically a training ground, and that
Speaker 1: training ground was typically through journalism school or at the
Speaker 1: very least a bachelor's degree at a major prestigious university.
Speaker 1: And the big corporate outlets like The New York Times
Speaker 1: and the Washington Post still hire mostly from those universities.
Speaker 1: So you have a group of people who tend to
Speaker 1: come from backgrounds where their parents were white collar, they
Speaker 1: tend to be wealthier, they're more likely to have lived
Speaker 1: in a city their entire life, and they're more likely
Speaker 1: to be liberal. So everyone who's in that briefing room,
Speaker 1: for the most part, there's a five to one conservative
Speaker 1: split in terms of who actually gets a seat in
Speaker 1: the briefing room. They're all kind of asking questions from
Speaker 1: the same perspective. So that's why you hear over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. Everybody is asking basically the same thing,
Speaker 1: and any undercovered story really just doesn't get airtime in
Speaker 1: that room. Yeah, I think it's really interesting too, you know,
Speaker 1: if you take it out a little bit further, you know,
Speaker 1: something we witnessed a lot was just the complete absence
Speaker 1: in a lot, not even editorially, but from the way
Speaker 1: that they approach news stories is always from a framework
Speaker 1: that is both group think and also happens to align
Speaker 1: mostly kind of with establishment thought. So since the time
Speaker 1: that you wrote the book, do you think that things
Speaker 1: have gotten better or worse? It's kind of split. I
Speaker 1: was actually in the briefing room yesterday with Karine Jean Pierre,
Speaker 1: and I heard basically the same thing that we would
Speaker 1: hear five years ago or three years ago when we
Speaker 1: were in the briefing room, which was question after question
Speaker 1: on the exact same topic. And yesterday John Kirby was
Speaker 1: in there talking about this upcoming democracy summit, and they
Speaker 1: were asking, you know, about which countries are allowed to
Speaker 1: be included in which ones aren't, And none of them
Speaker 1: were really asking interesting questions except for Steven Nelson, who
Speaker 1: was asking about the IRS's targeting of Matt Tayibi, and
Speaker 1: that was met with irols from creating Sean Pierre because
Speaker 1: how dare he actually go off script? But I will
Speaker 1: say in terms of the larger media, there's been a
Speaker 1: bit of pushback recently against the illiberal progressives who have
Speaker 1: been trying to turn journalism into purely activism, specifically at
Speaker 1: the New York Times, when reporters sided with Glad, the
Speaker 1: LGBTQ plus advocacy organization, to accuse The New York Times
Speaker 1: of transphobia, the New York Times newsroom leadership actually said
Speaker 1: that they were going they weren't going to tolerate reporters
Speaker 1: citing with activist groups any longer, and that they were
Speaker 1: going to start disciplinary proceedings for the reporters who had
Speaker 1: done so. And that's a huge shift, of course, from
Speaker 1: how they reacted to staffers accusing the paper of putting
Speaker 1: black lives in jeopardy when they published an op ed
Speaker 1: from Tom Cotton calling for sending in the National Guard
Speaker 1: to called riots in the summer of twenty twenty. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good point. Yeah, I agree. You know, you
Speaker 1: could see two sides of where things are headed. But
Speaker 1: I encourage people to go by the book or of
Speaker 1: a linked down in the description as a said Amber
Speaker 1: as an old friend of mine, and I appreciate you
Speaker 1: joining us. Thanks for the platform, Sager, of course. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll see you guys later. Fire at the Mexican border
Speaker 1: has killed at least thirty eight migrants, potentially more held
Speaker 1: at a detention center just south of the US border,
Speaker 1: exposing what is the what is the consequence of years
Speaker 1: of failed immigration policies coupled with recent surges. Biden administration
Speaker 1: announcements to that they're going to get rid of Title
Speaker 1: forty two and then immediately saying, well, actually, we're not
Speaker 1: getting rid of Title forty two until later. And in
Speaker 1: the meantime, we're going to put in these other restrictions,
Speaker 1: and people are going to have to stay south of
Speaker 1: the border, and you're gonna have to use this app
Speaker 1: to get across the border. And oh, of course the
Speaker 1: app doesn't work because government contract and there's some corruption
Speaker 1: who knows what corruption is involved that they can't make
Speaker 1: an app, and so you wind up with people crammed
Speaker 1: into these holding sales. This is apparently, and we could
Speaker 1: put up this second one pair of this rets reporting
Speaker 1: that there are some sixty eight people held without water
Speaker 1: all day in a sellment for fifty people. They started protesting,
Speaker 1: fire ended up breaking out, and you end up with
Speaker 1: this tragedy. Are What have you made of the reaction
Speaker 1: so far to this. I think it's been shockingly quiet.
Speaker 1: I think there hasn't been much reaction to this news,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that we're talking about thirty eight people
Speaker 1: just south of the American border war as so very
Speaker 1: very close to the United States in an official Mexican
Speaker 1: immigration facility, in an I in m facility. The level
Speaker 1: of death, I mean, that is just an tragic number, incredible,
Speaker 1: and I feel like there's been sort of crickets from
Speaker 1: American observers in this question, despite the fact that American
Speaker 1: immigration policy is almost certainly to blame. It's a huge
Speaker 1: poll factor. There are plenty of push factors that we
Speaker 1: can talk about too. But the reason that so many
Speaker 1: people are packed into these migrant facilities in Mexico is
Speaker 1: because right now they feel they have a pretty good
Speaker 1: chance of getting humanitarian parole in the United States. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of Guatemalan migrants in this particular facility.
Speaker 1: According to this is at least twenty eight Guatemala nationals
Speaker 1: were among the dead. That's according to Guatemala, their Institute
Speaker 1: of Migration. One man was Colombian, one was Ecuadorian, twelve Versalvadorans,
Speaker 1: thirteen were on DURAN, thirteen we Venezuelan. So people from
Speaker 1: all over south in Central America who you reference CBP
Speaker 1: one that's the app that has all kinds of problems
Speaker 1: and corruption. And that's the thing right now, there's just
Speaker 1: no clear pattern of who gets in when. So enough
Speaker 1: people believe if they come up to Siadad Warres or
Speaker 1: to Matamoros or Rainosa, they have a good enough chance
Speaker 1: to sort of wade it out, and that's why there's
Speaker 1: just this incredible overcrowding. Obviously the push factors are involved too,
Speaker 1: but the overcrowding is not tenable. None of what's happening
Speaker 1: in these border towns is tenable. Whether it's Ciadad Warres
Speaker 1: or El Paso, whether it's Brownsville and Matamoros, it is
Speaker 1: not tenable. It is not a sustainable situation. And we're
Speaker 1: going to see more of this. Eight people done in
Speaker 1: a fire, not less of it. And I think we
Speaker 1: should name names here too. And Susan Rice somehow has
Speaker 1: managed to skate by without much focus on her role
Speaker 1: in immigration policy within the Biden administration. Her presence in
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is completely inscrutable, beyond just pure kind
Speaker 1: of nepotism and inertia in the sense that she is
Speaker 1: a foreign policy expert. Her entire career, she has focused
Speaker 1: on foreign relations by all accounts, utterly qualified and talented
Speaker 1: person when it comes to foreign relations, well educated, well
Speaker 1: lots of experience, an appropriate appointee for a Biden type
Speaker 1: administration to put into its kind of foreign relations apparatus.
Speaker 1: They made her domestic policy head. Why still an unanswered
Speaker 1: question we have absolutely no idea why Susan Rice's domestic
Speaker 1: policy head and she still is. It's twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: she still is domestic policy head, and so with zero
Speaker 1: experience in any domestic policy issue, particularly in zero experience
Speaker 1: and immigration, she is kind of driving the Biden administration's
Speaker 1: immigration policy, which has just been a disaster. And the
Speaker 1: on top of the unanswerable question of how and why
Speaker 1: she's even in that position is how has she escaped
Speaker 1: scrutiny from the press for her role in this? That part,
Speaker 1: to me, I'm still trying to figure out, because normally,
Speaker 1: when something has gone as badly as it has for
Speaker 1: an administration, the press will figure out, okay, well, who
Speaker 1: is the person that we can write about, and who
Speaker 1: can we kind of, you know, who can we investigate
Speaker 1: and ask the question of what decisions made at what point?
Speaker 1: And you basically never see Susan Rice's name in any
Speaker 1: of these immigration articles, which actually might be the answer
Speaker 1: to the first question, because that is the sign of
Speaker 1: somebody who is a very effective kind of internal political
Speaker 1: player if they can be kind of leading the charge
Speaker 1: on an issue that is going poorly and still managed
Speaker 1: to keep their name out of it. That's the sign
Speaker 1: of somebody who really knows how to operate within Washington.
Speaker 1: But you might want instead somebody who has an idea
Speaker 1: of what they're doing when it comes to this. Well,
Speaker 1: and yes, domestic policy has just been a complete success
Speaker 1: for the Biden administration. So there are no questions to
Speaker 1: be asked of Susan Rice. But this comes as a hunter.
Speaker 1: Majorcas was grilled by congressional Republicans. I mean they let
Speaker 1: him up. The Senate Republicans let him up. Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: In particularly let him up. Ma Orcus didn't know why
Speaker 1: migrants were coming to our border with wristbands. It was
Speaker 1: one of the most basic things that if you spend
Speaker 1: time in border facilities you know about. If you follow immigration,
Speaker 1: probably a lot of you watching this know exactly why
Speaker 1: people are wearing wristbands is because they're given to them
Speaker 1: by cartels, because they paid cartels, or they owe money
Speaker 1: to cartels. Majorcis didn't know that. In a congressional hearing
Speaker 1: in front of the Senate, he did not know how
Speaker 1: many migrants died in US custody. And that's an increased
Speaker 1: number under his tenure. By the way, he's getting lit
Speaker 1: up by Senate Republicans for it just lacking basic knowledge
Speaker 1: of the crisis that's unfolded over his tenure. And then
Speaker 1: you see the other side of this, the humanitarian crisis
Speaker 1: of this, and I know it's unusual for people to
Speaker 1: see it Republicans, especially if you're Republican skeptical, conservative skeptical
Speaker 1: talking about human rights, talking about humanitarian crises in other countries.
Speaker 1: I understand the skepticism, I do, but it is a
Speaker 1: direct result of United States immigration policy and the fact
Speaker 1: that Ahuro Majorcis can't even answer these questions with like
Speaker 1: basic knowledge. He doesn't even seem to know what's happening,
Speaker 1: let alone have an ability to explain why it's happening.
Speaker 1: It's just an embarrassment, not just for us on the
Speaker 1: world stage, but to us as the American people that
Speaker 1: are affected by this too. It's unbelievable how the Biden
Speaker 1: administration has bungled thus, and it's remarkable that the bid
Speaker 1: administration has started to make things even less efficient than
Speaker 1: they already were. So you used to have a policy
Speaker 1: where you would have attorneys who were steeped in immigration law,
Speaker 1: who would be on the Mexican side of the border,
Speaker 1: who would identify the most vulnerable people who had the
Speaker 1: best chance of making asylum claims and otherwise moving through
Speaker 1: the system, and they oftentimes would kind of physically walk
Speaker 1: those people and oftentimes people who had health issues and
Speaker 1: didn't have time to wait. Now they've replaced that with
Speaker 1: this CBP one app that doesn't work. So now you
Speaker 1: have tens of thousands or more people who are all
Speaker 1: just trying to get an appointment through this app. Whether
Speaker 1: or not they are there're somebody who is in the
Speaker 1: most legitimate and immediate need or isn't. And that's the point.
Speaker 1: Times or somebody else wrote about a four month old
Speaker 1: child who in the past, there's a four month old
Speaker 1: child who's having a medical crisis, who in the past
Speaker 1: system would have just been walked by an attorney over
Speaker 1: to the border patrol. Border patrol would have quickly kind
Speaker 1: of move them, moved them through the system and gotten
Speaker 1: them medical care. Instead, the app doesn't work, the four
Speaker 1: month old dies. It's like gambling. Yeah, the app, there's
Speaker 1: just no rhyme or reason into who gets in when
Speaker 1: no ostensible rhyme or reason. I'm sure immigration officials on
Speaker 1: the border have whatever reason they have. You can i mean,
Speaker 1: you see it like nobody knows what's happening. You will
Speaker 1: talk to people who run the migration facilities and they're like,
Speaker 1: we literally do not know. We just get a list,
Speaker 1: and then we call people from the list, We put
Speaker 1: them on the bus, we take them across the border,
Speaker 1: and they're give it. They're they're put it a facility
Speaker 1: on the American side and they're given humanitarian parole. And again,
Speaker 1: that's why you have so many people gambling, because there
Speaker 1: is a chance and it's worth it to make a
Speaker 1: better life for your four month old, for yourself, and
Speaker 1: people die. Again, this is Cruse talking to Mayorcus. How
Speaker 1: many people died in twenty twenty two. So CRUs says,
Speaker 1: how many migrants have died under President Joe Biden. Mayorkus says,
Speaker 1: I do not know. Cris says, of course you don't.
Speaker 1: Eight hundred and fifty three. Eight hundred and fifty three
Speaker 1: is to increase. And you would think that the flippant
Speaker 1: answer that Mayorcus gave to that question would be and
Speaker 1: the fact that he didn't have the numbers in front
Speaker 1: of him, right, like your staff preps you and they
Speaker 1: put the important numbers and documents in front of you,
Speaker 1: you know that stuff. The fact that he came so
Speaker 1: unprepared should be a mass of embarrassment to the Biden administration.
Speaker 1: They stand by my Orcus. They don't seem to have
Speaker 1: any concerns about Mayorcus not knowing these like extremely basic thought.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just unthinkable. I cannot believe how he's
Speaker 1: he's gotten away with this and to show up in
Speaker 1: front of the Senate and not even have basic facts
Speaker 1: that your fingertip. It's just unreal. And one root of this,
Speaker 1: of course, is that the immigration process and system is
Speaker 1: completely broken and Congress has no ability to come together
Speaker 1: and fix it. But the other root of it is
Speaker 1: that for people like Susan Rice who are running this policy,
Speaker 1: they're running it based on optics, Like what they care
Speaker 1: about is numbers, like what are the numbers of encounters,
Speaker 1: what are the numbers we saw at the border this month?
Speaker 1: Or are the numbers that have been released? And all
Speaker 1: they care about is manipulating those numbers. And so then
Speaker 1: they come up with these policies that will say, well,
Speaker 1: what if we keep and Trump was doing the same thing,
Speaker 1: what if we keep these people or on this side
Speaker 1: of the border, then they don't count for the numbers.
Speaker 1: Obama manipulated the numbers in a ridiculous way when he
Speaker 1: was president. What he started doing is saying, we're going
Speaker 1: to count these encounters of people at the border in
Speaker 1: the early part of my administration as deportations. Under Bush
Speaker 1: and presidents before that, if border patrol caught somebody right
Speaker 1: across the border and put them on a bus and
Speaker 1: send them back, that was recorded, but it wasn't counted
Speaker 1: as a deportation. So then Obama started counting that as
Speaker 1: a deportation, so it went on his record. Look how
Speaker 1: tough I am on enforcement. He starts getting called the
Speaker 1: porter in chief, which he liked from the left because
Speaker 1: then he thought, oh, I'm going to go to the
Speaker 1: Republicans having proven how tough I am on the border,
Speaker 1: and then they're going to work with me because I'm
Speaker 1: tough guy. Yeah, And of course that didn't happen. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what CBP one is. It's a trick like what
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is doing is even worse than as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, it's worse than that. It's less efficient than
Speaker 1: all of that, because what they're doing is to get
Speaker 1: the number of illegal crossings down granting humanitarian parole on
Speaker 1: this totally arbitrary basis or on inscrutable basis via CBP one,
Speaker 1: and so that takes down illegal crossings. And so they've
Speaker 1: actually even said you're not going to be eligible for
Speaker 1: asylum if you are caught crossing illegally, which doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that people aren't coming into the United States. It means
Speaker 1: the government is giving them humanitarian parole and higher numbers
Speaker 1: to come into the United States. And humanitarian parole we
Speaker 1: can have a debate about that. I think the way
Speaker 1: that it's administered in this country is a damn shame
Speaker 1: because there are people who deserve to be prioritized. There
Speaker 1: are people with legitimate asylum claims who shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: live in the shadows of American society on this like
Speaker 1: totally you know, tenuous humanitarian parole, legal designation, which is difficult,
Speaker 1: and just wait for a court date in two years.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just absurd. And it's all getting funneled
Speaker 1: through CBP one and higher and higher numbers so that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden can bring down his illegal crossings. And the
Speaker 1: poignant part of it all is that it appears that
Speaker 1: the people in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela, Haiti, elsewhere,
Speaker 1: watched the democratic rage at Stephen Miller's immigration policies, watched
Speaker 1: the compassion that they showed toward migrants and believed it
Speaker 1: was real right, and believed that when Democrats came into
Speaker 1: power that there would be a shift in immigration policy,
Speaker 1: not not understanding that it's the same United it's roughly
Speaker 1: the same United States immigration policy, but with a kind
Speaker 1: of a smile, and they don't instead of kind of nativism, right, well,
Speaker 1: they don't even know. I mean, that's the thing with like,
Speaker 1: I think Democrats have gotten into this habit of dismissing
Speaker 1: concerns about the humanitarian crisis on the border as just
Speaker 1: republican cultural war posturing and don't even look at the situation.
Speaker 1: Like the fact that may Orcus doesn't know about the
Speaker 1: wristbands is insane. But I bet a lot of people
Speaker 1: on the left don't know about the ristbands and don't
Speaker 1: know about cartel control over migrant flow. It's become this
Speaker 1: like massive industrialized system an economy. If some if we're
Speaker 1: not going to organize it, somebody's going to organize it
Speaker 1: and make money off to the tune of tons, and
Speaker 1: they make money off of it and then hold these
Speaker 1: countries hostage to their illegal rule. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: a complete disaster. And Democrats, if they, if they had
Speaker 1: the compassion as you say that they projected during the
Speaker 1: Trump era, would look at things like this migrant fire
Speaker 1: and be able to connect the dots between Joe Biden's
Speaker 1: policy and what happened there very easily. But I doubt
Speaker 1: that will be the case. Yeah, I think again they
Speaker 1: should just gets just open up the border. I know
Speaker 1: that's what you think. Just open it up. There's not
Speaker 1: that many people on the North American continent like we
Speaker 1: can we can work collectively as various cultures together and
Speaker 1: find a solution to this. It's and I've said this
Speaker 1: a million times before, but like we're entering a period
Speaker 1: of we're going to enter a period of population decline,
Speaker 1: and countries that are able to attract immigrants are actually
Speaker 1: going to be the countries that outcompete the ones whose
Speaker 1: populations are aging and declining. Nobody wants to hear that
Speaker 1: because they think that they're gonna they're gonna lower wages,
Speaker 1: are gonna take something from them. There's not enough room.
Speaker 1: That's that's not the case. The countries that are keeping
Speaker 1: people out are gonna be the ones that are that
Speaker 1: are gonna be the ones that are gonna suffer. I mean,
Speaker 1: I generally agree with that. I just don't agree that
Speaker 1: open borders is the best way to accomplish it. A
Speaker 1: little more open and you can you can still like
Speaker 1: check passports and stuff, obviously. Yeah, but like this like
Speaker 1: thing where you just people can't move just feels wrong.
Speaker 1: We should do a full segment on this in a
Speaker 1: future episode, because I don't think we've ever had that.
Speaker 1: Like there we go all right before, so yeah, look
Speaker 1: forward to that and we go all right, So we'll
Speaker 1: stick around for that at some point. See you later,
Speaker 1: all right. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. I'm editor in chief of
Speaker 1: the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People,
Speaker 1: and this is the Art of class War on breaking points.
Speaker 1: While coverage in the corporate media of the general strike
Speaker 1: rocking Grants has increased of late, the fact remains that
Speaker 1: for the past six months, one of the most massive
Speaker 1: stories not covered with corresponding urgency in North American media
Speaker 1: has been the massive, sustained and growing strikes by workers
Speaker 1: across sectors in the UK and in France, but also
Speaker 1: large strikes in Spain, Greece, Belgium and elsewhere. Between inflation
Speaker 1: and endless war spending and corporate price gouging affecting everything
Speaker 1: from energy costs to rent and grocery bills. Working people
Speaker 1: across Europe and around the world are being pummeled by
Speaker 1: a cost of living crisis right now, and we are
Speaker 1: seeing organized labor, namely unions, resort to using industrial action,
Speaker 1: namely strikes, as a means of forcing the bosses, the
Speaker 1: business class and the elite serving ruling class, serving politicians
Speaker 1: and government to halt their multi fronted attack on the
Speaker 1: working class. And they're being joined by students, retirees, delegations
Speaker 1: from other countries and organizations representing other social movements. The
Speaker 1: top down assault on working people is taking many forms
Speaker 1: from French President Emmanuel Macron's deeply unpopular plan to raise
Speaker 1: retirement ages and further weaken the country's beloved pension system,
Speaker 1: changes he has opted to force into reality by controversially
Speaker 1: and undemocratically invoking constitutional special powers to override Parliament, to
Speaker 1: the French police's brutal crackdown on strikers to the Tory
Speaker 1: government in the UK drawing out and throwing a wrench
Speaker 1: into negotiations in the National rail dispute involving the National
Speaker 1: Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers or the RMT,
Speaker 1: and on top of that, responding to the massive wave
Speaker 1: of strikes in the UK by ramming through a draconian
Speaker 1: anti labor law that will force striking workers to cross
Speaker 1: their own picket lines. When I say these strikes are
Speaker 1: a massive story, I mean it. If you've been watching
Speaker 1: our continued coverage over at the Real News or our
Speaker 1: reports here on Breaking Points, then you know that both
Speaker 1: France and the UK are in the midst of history
Speaker 1: making nationwide strike waves. Whether they're fighting against Macron's Wall Street,
Speaker 1: serving attack on pensions, or fighting for real pay raises,
Speaker 1: lower energy and housing costs, or more job security and
Speaker 1: safer staffing levels, workers have been hitting the streets and
Speaker 1: holding picket lines, from freight and passenger rail workers, oil
Speaker 1: refinery and sanitation workers, civil servants and farmers, to school teachers,
Speaker 1: university lecturers, post workers, nurses, ambulance drivers, and Amazon workers.
Speaker 1: To get an on the ground update on the class
Speaker 1: struggle playing out across France in the UK. I'm honored
Speaker 1: to be joined today once again by Matu Bodeadat, calling
Speaker 1: in from France. Matteu is a train operator and general
Speaker 1: secretary of the Versailles branch of the CGT Union or
Speaker 1: the General Confederation of Labor. We're also joined by Gaz
Speaker 1: Jackson calling in from England, another familiar face for real
Speaker 1: news viewers. Gaz worked on the rails for fifteen years
Speaker 1: as a train guard and now serves as the rmt's
Speaker 1: regional organizer in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. Gaz Matteu, thank you
Speaker 1: both so much for joining me today on Breaking Points.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. I know it's late on a
Speaker 1: Sunday and you guys have been fighting your asses off
Speaker 1: four months on end, so I promise I won't ask
Speaker 1: you guys like I have in past interviews, to give
Speaker 1: us the full backstories behind these strikes across France and
Speaker 1: the UK. If folks are looking for that background context,
Speaker 1: we've got a treasure trove of reporting for you. You
Speaker 1: can go watch our past segments on Breaking Points, including
Speaker 1: my last interview with Matthu. Go watch the many documentary
Speaker 1: reports that we've published over at the real news on
Speaker 1: the strikes in Greece, Spain and across the UK and France.
Speaker 1: You can listen to podcast interviews with Gazz and other
Speaker 1: great British rail workers that we publish. But for right now,
Speaker 1: I just want to give people an update on where
Speaker 1: things are right now. So, you know, why don't we
Speaker 1: just start by, you know, telling people from your vantage
Speaker 1: points as members of in fighters for the working class
Speaker 1: what has been happening in your countries over the past week.
Speaker 1: So Gas, why don't we start with you and then
Speaker 1: Mattheu will go to you. Yeah, good, even everybody. So
Speaker 1: over the last week within the r MT, we've suspended
Speaker 1: our industrial action on the National Rail dispute because we've
Speaker 1: seen some movement from the government and the train operating companies.
Speaker 1: What this is going to allow us to do is
Speaker 1: get the information out to our members so they can
Speaker 1: make a judgment on whether or not they want to
Speaker 1: accept the proposals from the government and the train operating companies.
Speaker 1: Being a democratic union, that's only right that we believe
Speaker 1: that our members should have the final say. But just
Speaker 1: generally across the UK, we're seeing people winning these disputes.
Speaker 1: You know, the doctors have got to pay rise. The
Speaker 1: nurses are in depth talks and the Communication Workers Union
Speaker 1: are also in depth talks with the government as well
Speaker 1: to try and get their disputes. So what we're seeing
Speaker 1: really in the UK, certainly in the last month or so,
Speaker 1: is some victories, which is really good to see. So
Speaker 1: we just want that to carry on and our members
Speaker 1: will have the final say on whether the dale is
Speaker 1: acceptable that the government will give them. Matthew, you can
Speaker 1: happen whenever you're ready. Okay, Hi, everybody, thank you Max
Speaker 1: for this calling. Good evening to all brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: in Baltimore and all cameras from USA, so from across
Speaker 1: the ocean. I have my report to do for you
Speaker 1: about the situation in France. Of course, you know, since
Speaker 1: the seventh of March there is an unlimited strike in
Speaker 1: France of strategic sector in the economy to blockade the economy,
Speaker 1: so right way, of course, but metro and a bus
Speaker 1: of course, and electric and gas power and the worker
Speaker 1: from our finery and the people from you know, the
Speaker 1: collecting garbage, the collecting trash in Paris and in seven
Speaker 1: big cities in France. So we are a limited strike
Speaker 1: since the beginning of March and we u and one
Speaker 1: day by week there is general strike with other sectors
Speaker 1: come with us, uh to to go and strike. So
Speaker 1: as you know, maybe because it was on the on
Speaker 1: the every newspaper and all over the world the last
Speaker 1: last week. The government is a minority in the country,
Speaker 1: of course, because there is all the oppositional party, political party,
Speaker 1: all the trade unions. Trade unions are against the law.
Speaker 1: But with discovery is he was in a minority even
Speaker 1: in the parliament, at the parliament, so he used tricks
Speaker 1: in our constitution to bypass the parliament and pass the
Speaker 1: law without vote. So of course it's this uh, this
Speaker 1: off and uh there is not just a limited strike
Speaker 1: of the strategic sector of the economy. There is the
Speaker 1: young people. For the first time since the beginning of
Speaker 1: the movement, the youth. They came every night, every evening,
Speaker 1: every night in the to demonstrate in the center of Paris,
Speaker 1: but in plenty cities of friends and demonstrate, burn garbage,
Speaker 1: a fight with the police, and I think it was
Speaker 1: it's very brutal fight. A lot of people was enjured,
Speaker 1: was hurt during the fight against the police. So the
Speaker 1: movement continue, but it takes the new crossing line now
Speaker 1: because with the entrance of the US people in the movement.
Speaker 1: So it's very important because we the working class, we
Speaker 1: still continue to be on strike, but we will not less.
Speaker 1: Our children will be beaten, badly beaten by the police
Speaker 1: during the night in the streets, you know. So it's
Speaker 1: a new development, a new motion of this movement and
Speaker 1: we will continue. You have to see Paris. You have
Speaker 1: to see Paris now. There is trash everywhere, there is
Speaker 1: rats everywhere. It's ugly, you know, you have to see that,
Speaker 1: very nasty. It's definitely not the show Emily in Paris,
Speaker 1: you know, with good selfie in the monument. Every night.
Speaker 1: There is several places the BA still place, the Bastill Square,
Speaker 1: as you know, the Concord Square. They are occupied by children,
Speaker 1: by young people and the fight against the police. So
Speaker 1: that's the situation now. Of course, for the President Macron
Speaker 1: and the forty nine point three it's the article of
Speaker 1: the tricks of the Constitution to bypass the parliament. For
Speaker 1: him it was the end of the process, but for
Speaker 1: us is the beginning of the new process of the mobilization.
Speaker 1: May I just sorry say a few more words about
Speaker 1: the international solidarity with our with our movement, if I may, okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So it's very important because we knew that every working
Speaker 1: class and people in all over Europe, including across the ocean,
Speaker 1: look at for you, for us, look at our situation,
Speaker 1: look at our movement, and wait for our winning. We
Speaker 1: know that we know for them it could be a tool,
Speaker 1: a leverage, you know, to see and that's our way,
Speaker 1: the way of struggle of classes is the winning way.
Speaker 1: We know that. But now is not just an expectation.
Speaker 1: Every week we have a delegation from different countries to
Speaker 1: demonstrate with us, and gas Jackson comes one months ago
Speaker 1: to demonstrate in Paris, people from Belgium, people from Portugal,
Speaker 1: people from Italy, people from Greece, people from Germany, from Denmark,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Story. And every day we receive statement of solidarity.
Speaker 1: And we know there is a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of country in Europa, including in America. I saw it
Speaker 1: two days ago in Los Angeles. There is trade unionist
Speaker 1: protests in the front of French ambassadory and that's very important.
Speaker 1: And in different countries, the collect money, the rise money
Speaker 1: for our solidarity fonts and we receive my union, receive
Speaker 1: ten thousand euro two days ago from Italy. The collect
Speaker 1: money from US, etcetera, etcetera. So that's very important for us.
Speaker 1: There is an international solidarity. There is a national solidarity
Speaker 1: because we collect a lot of money three weeks ago.
Speaker 1: There is peasants, poor farmers. The collect two towns, two
Speaker 1: towns of food, meat, food, vegetable, honey, bread, cheese, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and all the good things of our big country. The
Speaker 1: collect two tons from my station for the striker of
Speaker 1: their side, and they bring to us. So that's incredible
Speaker 1: because we know, and you have to know, an unlimited strike.
Speaker 1: Our what's enemy is the feeling of loneliness. But now
Speaker 1: we don't feeling lonely. Okay, we know we are support.
Speaker 1: We have loved, We are loved by people in France,
Speaker 1: in Europe, in all over the world. People expect our
Speaker 1: victory and vox for Pili Volks Day, we will give
Speaker 1: to them the biggest victory of the twenty one century.
Speaker 1: About the working class fight. Oh yeah, baby, and Gus,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see if you had had anything
Speaker 1: you wanted to add there about that. The scope of
Speaker 1: all of this, right, like you said, the RMT as
Speaker 1: We've talked about a number of times you me and
Speaker 1: your fellow rail workers Clayton Cat and others at the
Speaker 1: Real News. You know, y'all really were kind of the
Speaker 1: tip of the spear beginning your strikes back in the summer,
Speaker 1: and it feels like things have only grown across the
Speaker 1: UK since then, and we've been seeing this sort of
Speaker 1: like brutal response from the Tories doing what the ruling
Speaker 1: class is trying to do here at the Supreme Court level.
Speaker 1: Folks should watch my past Breaking Points segment about the
Speaker 1: Glacier Northwest case before the Supreme Court right now, which
Speaker 1: may give businesses the ability to sue unions basically out
Speaker 1: of existence for economic damages caused during a strike. And
Speaker 1: causing economic damages is the whole damn point of a strike.
Speaker 1: So over in the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak and the
Speaker 1: Tory government have been responding to this incredible historic wave
Speaker 1: of strikes and sectors across the UK, not by you know,
Speaker 1: addressing people's dire concerns about costs of living, you know,
Speaker 1: wage stagnation, corporate pillage, YadA, YadA, YadA, but instead you know,
Speaker 1: focusing on taking away workers' power to organize and take
Speaker 1: industrial action by ramming through this draconian anti strike loss.
Speaker 1: So I was wondering if you could just sort of
Speaker 1: say a little bit building on what matth you were
Speaker 1: saying about the scope of these strikes, the response that
Speaker 1: you're getting from the community, from other unions, or even
Speaker 1: from folks around the world. So the sport that we've
Speaker 1: had has been absolutely fantastic. And I think you hit
Speaker 1: the nail on the head, Max when you say that
Speaker 1: the RMT was almost a spearhead of the fight back
Speaker 1: of the UK. I think that the analogy that I
Speaker 1: use is we kind of we dropped a stone in
Speaker 1: the pond and we've sent out a ripple effects and
Speaker 1: all of the trade unions have started to join it
Speaker 1: because they've realized that they can't afford to not strike,
Speaker 1: because if we don't strike, we will not get the
Speaker 1: pay rise that we deserve, We'll not keep the terms
Speaker 1: and conditions that we fought for over the years. And
Speaker 1: I just wanted to touch on what Matthew said about
Speaker 1: the rats in the street in Paris, and is he
Speaker 1: refering to the politicians. Certainly Macron after pulling his dat tricks.
Speaker 1: If you see one with an eighty thousand dollars. Watch
Speaker 1: then you'll know maybe maybe you could sell that for
Speaker 1: the solidarity fund for the CGT. But joking aside, you know,
Speaker 1: we we receive donations from Matthew's branch over over in Paris,
Speaker 1: and we also received many many other donations and our
Speaker 1: solidarity fund last year, and we'll be returning the favor
Speaker 1: in the very near future. I'm hoping to get over
Speaker 1: to Paris again in the next few weeks to show
Speaker 1: some support for Matthew and the guys over there, because
Speaker 1: they've been over here and they've showed support to us.
Speaker 1: So that just goes to show that the international solidarity
Speaker 1: is very important. And what I would say to the
Speaker 1: people out in France is don't feel lonely because they
Speaker 1: are empty right behind you. Hell yeah, love it. And
Speaker 1: I guess, like on that note, because I again, I
Speaker 1: know it's late on a Sunday, I gotta let you
Speaker 1: guys go, but I just wanted to sort of highlight
Speaker 1: something that it feels like both of you are saying.
Speaker 1: And this is certainly something we hear in the reporting
Speaker 1: that we've been publishing at the Real News is these struggles, right,
Speaker 1: there's so much of it that is focused on you know,
Speaker 1: workplace issues, right, like, you know, working conditions, raises to
Speaker 1: keep up with the cost of living, more safer staffing ratios,
Speaker 1: and education and healthcare, so on and so forth. But
Speaker 1: it feels like in France, in the UK and increasingly
Speaker 1: beyond that it's about much more than that too. It
Speaker 1: feels like this is really sort of the working class
Speaker 1: and the labor movement, you know, digging their heels into
Speaker 1: the ground, trying to stop a long backslide that has
Speaker 1: been going on for years and pushing back to advance
Speaker 1: a different vision of society. And so I just wanted
Speaker 1: to ask, by way of closing out, if that feels like,
Speaker 1: if that track with what you're viewing and seeing over
Speaker 1: there on the ground, if this is about, you know,
Speaker 1: what workers are going through immediately, but also what society
Speaker 1: is going through, and you know what can folks here
Speaker 1: in North America and beyond do to stand in solidarity
Speaker 1: with their fellow workers in the UK and France and
Speaker 1: across Europe. Of course, it's about our immediate claims, of course, wages.
Speaker 1: In France, it's the subject specifically of pension, but it's
Speaker 1: a it's a matter of choice of society and model.
Speaker 1: Strike continue. Well, we're the workers. We talk about that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's an interesting period, an interesting moment. The
Speaker 1: time is sustained and we can we can talk about
Speaker 1: the society we want. I know, in the word books
Speaker 1: of r Empty there is a world about the The
Speaker 1: goal of tradingionism is socialism, a new socialist order of society.
Speaker 1: I think we have the same in France. And of
Speaker 1: course when we are on strike, we do a demonstration.
Speaker 1: We are the working class. If we don't work, the country,
Speaker 1: the entire country collapse. Okay, So we discovery and all
Speaker 1: the society discovery true things, but a true things hiding.
Speaker 1: It's we produce. We create because we work. So we
Speaker 1: have to decide we have to take back our future.
Speaker 1: We have to take back the power in this society
Speaker 1: because we are the only used full class in the world. So,
Speaker 1: and it's difficult to say that because I'm from working class.
Speaker 1: I'm from a post suburb, Okay. And what we learn
Speaker 1: when we are child, then we are parasite, we are nothing,
Speaker 1: and we are losers and the winners. We can sew
Speaker 1: it on TV show. There are lawyers, they are traders.
Speaker 1: They are Theogian et cetera, and we are nothing. But
Speaker 1: during this period we understand finally that we are everything,
Speaker 1: and if we are not at work, the countries collapse.
Speaker 1: So we have to decide to rule this country. That's
Speaker 1: very interesting during this period and that's giving to us confidence.
Speaker 1: Finally we are the cool class, we have the swag,
Speaker 1: we walking class are beautiful. Make working class great again.
Speaker 1: And just for a confusion, you talk about a donational sorinarity,
Speaker 1: my dear brother Max, I will share to you the
Speaker 1: links about our solidarity funds and you can you can
Speaker 1: put in your podcast if you want, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: In the UK, we've seen a massive increase in people
Speaker 1: joining trade unions, certainly with the teachers. I think they've
Speaker 1: they've gained over fifty five thousand members since they was
Speaker 1: out on dispute. That's fantastic. We're engaging more with people
Speaker 1: and we're trying to organize within communities, not just with
Speaker 1: our trade unions. I think it's important that we go
Speaker 1: and speak to people that have not had any affiliations
Speaker 1: to trade unions or don't really know what a trade
Speaker 1: union are, because if people don't know, they won't understand
Speaker 1: and like Matthew said, without us, no wheels will turn.
Speaker 1: The one percent won't earn their money. They're billions of pounds.
Speaker 1: The ninety nine percent, which is us, We have the power.
Speaker 1: They don't have the power. They think they have the power,
Speaker 1: but we do. If we don't work, they don't end.
Speaker 1: That's as simple as it is. And we will of course, Matthew,
Speaker 1: we will share all your solidarity funds out within the
Speaker 1: RMT as well, and I'm hoping to bring over a
Speaker 1: good donation to here in a few weeks time. Brother.
Speaker 1: So that is Mattheu Boulder that calling in from France.
Speaker 1: Matthieu is a train operator and General secretary of the
Speaker 1: Versailles branch of the General Confederation of Labor or the CGT.
Speaker 1: And Gaz Jackson calling in from England. Gaz worked on
Speaker 1: the rails for fifteen years as a train guard and
Speaker 1: now serves as the RMTS regional organizer in Yorkshire in Lincolnshire. Gazz, Matthieu,
Speaker 1: thank you both so much for joining me today on
Speaker 1: Breaking Points Solidarity from across the Pond. Thank you a
Speaker 1: veryrech You're nice see lights. Thank you for watching this
Speaker 1: segment on Breaking Points and be sure to subscribe to
Speaker 1: my news outlet, the Real News Network, with links in
Speaker 1: the show description. See you soon for the next edition
Speaker 1: of the Art of Class War. Take care of yourselves,
Speaker 1: take care of each other. Solidarity Forever.