Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
Speaker 2: the future of the show.
Speaker 1: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 1: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 1: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
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Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 1: news media, and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com. At the same time, there was some extraordinary
Speaker 1: developments in media Donald Trump's election, prompting some to think
Speaker 1: they should just quit. One of them is HBO's Bill Maher.
Speaker 1: You can take a listen to his reasoning.
Speaker 3: I mean, I may quit because I don't want to
Speaker 3: do another I did Trump, I did. I did all
Speaker 3: the Trump stuff before anybody. I called him a con
Speaker 3: man before anybody.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 3: He's a mafia boss. I was the one who said
Speaker 3: he wasn't going to con the election. I've done it.
Speaker 3: I've seen this well.
Speaker 5: Then, how come he's so hostile to Jimmy Kimmel and
Speaker 5: not to you.
Speaker 4: He's very hostile to me? Is it's about me?
Speaker 1: Every week?
Speaker 6: Oh really?
Speaker 3: Oh yes, every week he accidentally watches my show and then.
Speaker 4: Low ratings loser. Oh yeah, but I mean.
Speaker 3: I just I'm bored with it.
Speaker 1: So which is it? Is he bored or is he afraid?
Speaker 2: Or is it because at another point he says, I'm
Speaker 2: shitting my pants.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know about Trump being back and off.
Speaker 1: First he was, like I said it before everybody. I
Speaker 1: called him a con man for bro they've been calling
Speaker 1: on Jonald Trump comments. Is nineteen what nineteen seventy eight?
Speaker 1: None of that original? What he called him cheeto, Jesus
Speaker 1: orange man. This is not original, Like, this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: He was, if anything, he was a follower. I mean
Speaker 1: that's how I see him, frankly, as like this neo
Speaker 1: reactionary center left figure who's like constantly calibrating where he
Speaker 1: can be contrarian but also be within the confines of
Speaker 1: this like imaginary movement which doesn't exist beyond the likes
Speaker 1: of Amy Klobajar famous clip that happened with him. So
Speaker 1: I don't know you know the with Bill, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe you should retire obviously be good. He's been on
Speaker 1: the air for for decades.
Speaker 6: It's like, what I'm personally, at what point are.
Speaker 1: You still adding to the conversation? And look, I know
Speaker 1: this is meme. I like Bill Maher. I watched Religious
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. He did a lot of
Speaker 1: good work on atheism, you know, and stuff like that
Speaker 1: in the past. But in the last Trump you know,
Speaker 1: in the Trump years, what's been disappointing is how boring, frankly,
Speaker 1: how much all of it has been.
Speaker 2: It's just it always comes back to the same conclusion,
Speaker 2: which is like these woke young people blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, all right, you know, we get it,
Speaker 2: Like we see that point. We've heard that point before,
Speaker 2: and so it was funny Jane fond of being kind
Speaker 2: of like, huh, well, why doesn't.
Speaker 6: He go after you?
Speaker 2: Which I think she's correct that at this point mar
Speaker 2: has a lot of fans, even as he still, you know,
Speaker 2: a t imp opponent. There's no doubt. I'm Gie voted
Speaker 2: for Kamala Harris. He though Kamala Harris was gonna win,
Speaker 2: as I did in many others but because a lot
Speaker 2: of his commentary is punching left, he does have a
Speaker 2: lot of fans who are Republican right wing voter for Trump,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So in any case, it is kind of
Speaker 2: funny that he's wavering between I'm just bored and sort
Speaker 2: of exhausted by it, or I might be kind of.
Speaker 6: Scared of the next term.
Speaker 2: Speaking of all of that drama, a very interesting drama
Speaker 2: is playing out, Greek tragedy potentially playing out over with
Speaker 2: the Morning Joe people and their whole roster of regulars.
Speaker 2: So David from apparently went on the show and made
Speaker 2: some spicy comments about Fox News. We can put this
Speaker 2: tear sheet up on the screen of him explaining how
Speaker 2: all of this went down. The headline here is the
Speaker 2: sound of fear on air. It's an ominous sign that
Speaker 2: Morning Joe Felder had to apologize for something I said.
Speaker 2: So in any case, they were talking about Pete Hegseth
Speaker 2: and all the allegations against him. Some of the latest
Speaker 2: allegations are you know per some folks at Fox say
Speaker 2: that they were concerned about his drinking, that he would
Speaker 2: show up and they could smell alcohol him on him
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So he says, and I quote,
Speaker 2: let's take all the drinking, all the sex pesting, subtract
Speaker 2: any knowledge of defense, subtract any leadership, and there is
Speaker 2: your next Secretary of Defense for the twenty first century.
Speaker 2: If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk. Indeed,
Speaker 2: so you know, this is all kind of power for
Speaker 2: the course for what morning. Joe used to be a
Speaker 2: in the tenor of the dialogue that you would expect.
Speaker 6: And apparently David.
Speaker 2: From had already been warned in his ear about like
Speaker 2: your you know, his tone or being a little bit
Speaker 2: too edged, et cetera. And then he goes on and
Speaker 2: he says this, and then Mika feels the need to
Speaker 2: come on air after they've dismissed David From, who's now
Speaker 2: apparently too edgy for the show, and says a little
Speaker 2: bit earlier in this block, there was a comment made
Speaker 2: about Fox News in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and
Speaker 2: the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years.
Speaker 2: The comment was a little too flippant for this moment
Speaker 2: that we're in. We just want to make that comment
Speaker 2: as well. We want to make that clear. We have
Speaker 2: differences in coverage with Fox News, and that's a good
Speaker 2: debate that we should have often. But right now I
Speaker 2: just want to say, there's a lot of good people
Speaker 2: who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegsett
Speaker 2: and we will want to leave it at that. So obviously, Saga,
Speaker 2: this comes on the heels of them making their sojourn
Speaker 2: down to maur A Lago and having literally on that day,
Speaker 2: in the next hour, they lost what forty percent of
Speaker 2: their audience in a time when you know, over the
Speaker 2: course of the morning show your audience is supposed to
Speaker 2: build and build and build. Instead of building, forty percent
Speaker 2: dropped off. MSNBC overall has lost something like half their audience.
Speaker 2: They are already, you know, have already announced they're spinning
Speaker 2: off MSNBC along with another with a bundle of other
Speaker 2: cable news channels. NBC is staying at comcasts, so they're
Speaker 2: not going to have, you know, the journalism of NBC.
Speaker 2: They that this is going to be like a well
Speaker 2: funded startup, not music to the ears of people who
Speaker 2: are making each of them, I think make ten million
Speaker 2: a year.
Speaker 6: Each of them should be nice, each of them good
Speaker 6: gig and they're watching.
Speaker 2: I mean, they're really in kind of a tailspin here,
Speaker 2: which I think comes out in their reaction which happened
Speaker 2: just this morning.
Speaker 6: Thank you to our.
Speaker 2: Producers for getting this flip cut so that we could
Speaker 2: react to it. Where they're now responding to David from
Speaker 2: and you know the fact that he's calling them out
Speaker 2: for basically being I guess terrified or capitulating or whatever
Speaker 2: it is that they're doing. Let's take a listen to
Speaker 2: how Joe and Mika responded.
Speaker 7: This got turned into a column and a headline that
Speaker 7: said that, let's say, what was the headline this sound
Speaker 7: of fear? Now, that wasn't the sound of fear, that
Speaker 7: was the sound of civility, and saying that Meca had apologized,
Speaker 7: think had apologized. She simply said it was too flippant. Now,
Speaker 7: I would recommend that if we're at the stage where
Speaker 7: a comment like this causes a meltdown. And I said,
Speaker 7: George Conway, another guy we have on the show and
Speaker 7: we love George saying read this article. It's going to
Speaker 7: make you very sad, but you must read it all. Oh,
Speaker 7: because of the fearful times we're in. Well, there's some
Speaker 7: problem with the Times that were in.
Speaker 6: You can't be fearful.
Speaker 7: If you can't be fearful just because some people have
Speaker 7: said that we're fearful. Let me tell you something. You
Speaker 7: can talk to anybody that's worked in the front office
Speaker 7: of NBC and MSNBC over the past twenty two years.
Speaker 7: I'll tell you I'm not fearful. You knocked anybody who
Speaker 7: served with me in Congress, they will tell you not
Speaker 7: fearful of leadership. The main complaint was that we call
Speaker 7: Donald Trump's rhetorick fascist during the campaign, and then we
Speaker 7: went down to have an offful record comment with and
Speaker 7: guess who else does that?
Speaker 6: Let me see from the New York Times, the New
Speaker 6: York Times Postal.
Speaker 2: You know what, I even think folks from the Atlantic,
Speaker 2: I think I think they.
Speaker 7: Might probably do that if they have a chance to
Speaker 7: talk on the background with the incoming president and president elect,
Speaker 7: they do it. In fact, as somebody wrote during this
Speaker 7: outrageously stupid immature, a series of articles that lied time
Speaker 7: and time again about US reporters, said, I'd be fired
Speaker 7: if I had the opportunity to go in and talk
Speaker 7: to somebody who's incoming president of the United States I
Speaker 7: didn't do it. Ask any journalists at the New York Times,
Speaker 7: the New York President.
Speaker 6: Joe, Joe, you are not a journalist.
Speaker 2: You are a group of people who loves to just
Speaker 2: suck up to power, Like these are the people who
Speaker 2: were the Biden whisperers, and we see where that got,
Speaker 2: you know, the side of the aisle they were supposed
Speaker 2: to be assisting with.
Speaker 6: You know, they were people.
Speaker 2: Joe is the person who went on and was like,
Speaker 2: I've seen all sorts of Joe Bidens. This is the
Speaker 2: best Joe Biden I have ever seen. And if you
Speaker 2: don't believe it and you don't see that, fuck you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And three weeks later, what happens. He's talking about
Speaker 1: how Joe Biden needs to drop out of the incredible
Speaker 1: He called Trump a Hitlarian fascists. That's the thing about
Speaker 1: the from thing is like, I don't agree with you
Speaker 1: what David Frum said, but okay, I mean you can't
Speaker 1: be having a show built on histrionics of liberal of
Speaker 1: like literal fascism, warning that Hitler is re rising in America,
Speaker 1: and then what three weeks later you're in your guest's ear.
Speaker 6: That's outrageous tone of debt.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this. I've been on probably television a
Speaker 1: hundred times on Fox News or some of these other channels.
Speaker 6: I've never had I've never had that happened to me either.
Speaker 2: I have never even when I was a host, I
Speaker 2: never had them like, oh, he needs a tone a debt.
Speaker 1: I have never had that happen my entire care well.
Speaker 2: And you're so right, and that was something that really
Speaker 2: irritated me too. He's like, we said some of his
Speaker 2: rhetoric was fashion.
Speaker 1: No you didn't, No, you didn't.
Speaker 6: You said he was hitler.
Speaker 1: Yeah, literally, you said that.
Speaker 2: And then once he won, you went down to suck
Speaker 2: up and gravel and bend the knee. Don't portray this
Speaker 2: as some like brave journalistic feet bullshit, bullshit. So they're
Speaker 2: in a total meltdown mode, like they're in a tailspin mode.
Speaker 2: I think they are truly sort of like panicked about
Speaker 2: what to do and how to maintain their relevance. And
Speaker 2: they've had a very cushy and very powerful seat at
Speaker 2: the center of power, especially never more so than during
Speaker 2: the Biden administration. I mean this, they were on the
Speaker 2: phone with him, they'd have his you know, John meetcham
Speaker 2: on who was his speech writer.
Speaker 6: That they you know, wouldn't even mention the.
Speaker 2: You know, conflict of interest of this person giving this
Speaker 2: analysis on their show. Whatever, None of that was over
Speaker 2: the line. But apparently, you know, David fromm is now
Speaker 2: too spicy for them. It really is quite quite remarkable
Speaker 2: to see, and of course, I you know, cheer for
Speaker 2: the demise of this program in particular, which I think
Speaker 2: has been one of the most damaging. Like if you actually,
Speaker 2: if you care about the Democratic Party being any like
Speaker 2: better at all than they are right now and doing
Speaker 2: anything that's going to like really deliver for working class people,
Speaker 2: these two have been so pernicious, so damaging, and so
Speaker 2: frankly effective in the project of blocking any grassroots populist
Speaker 2: energy that you know, to watch them struggle and spin
Speaker 2: and you know, have these coping meltdowns live on air
Speaker 2: is truly a beautiful thing to behold.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole thing is hilarious. But the sad
Speaker 1: part is it honestly might work. The reason why they're
Speaker 1: policing the pete hegxsath comments because they still want people
Speaker 1: in power to come on their show. My hope is
Speaker 1: that the Republicans don't do this again. In fact, yesterday
Speaker 1: there was a viral photo where a Trump point was
Speaker 1: spotted having lunch with CNN journalist Caitlin Collins and getting
Speaker 1: docs like live by being like, hey check this out,
Speaker 1: look at these people by maga people who are pointing
Speaker 1: that out. But this is the dirty little secret that
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans never want to acknowledge. Nobody wants
Speaker 1: mainstream media attention and approval more than Republican lawmakers. It's
Speaker 1: true Trump in particular, Oh Trump, Trump is the head
Speaker 1: of the snake. But like they all like it. They
Speaker 1: love to be on CNN or any of these other places,
Speaker 1: not even just to fight. They like the attention. They
Speaker 1: like to be feted by the people that they think
Speaker 1: embody political media.
Speaker 2: It just occurred to me, I wonder if they think,
Speaker 2: maybe maybe our next move is Fox News.
Speaker 6: Maybe I don't think that that's crazy to think.
Speaker 2: Why the comments about Fox in particular triggered them.
Speaker 1: It's a good point.
Speaker 2: Because you know, m SBC is being spun off well
Speaker 2: funded startup, Okay, well funded startup or not, you are
Speaker 2: not going to be able to afford twenty million dollars
Speaker 2: for these pair of morons who have no audience left right,
Speaker 2: So where else can you go and get that kind
Speaker 2: of a pay day and have that kind of access
Speaker 2: to power? Like Fox News right now has like seventy
Speaker 2: three percent or something of the cable news market share.
Speaker 2: They're the biggest game in town. And if you're going
Speaker 2: to be relevant in the Trump era, you're probably gonna.
Speaker 6: Be on Fox News.
Speaker 2: So you know, whether they you know, really think they
Speaker 2: can make the shift there or not, which I don't
Speaker 2: put them past them to have the level of narcissism
Speaker 2: EO to think that, oh any of.
Speaker 1: Thesetors and they make us as a lot all seen
Speaker 1: they can justify anything to themselves about the move.
Speaker 2: Course, Oh of course, of course no, they would go on,
Speaker 2: we're you know, we're branching out.
Speaker 6: We're just speaking truth.
Speaker 2: We're trying to reach audiences that you know, we couldn't
Speaker 2: reach over at MSNBC.
Speaker 6: You better believe it.
Speaker 2: And also I don't put up past Fox to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: maybe you know, like take a shot of them if
Speaker 2: it makes sense, if it's like useful to them and
Speaker 2: they think it works for their bottom line, so maybe
Speaker 2: that's the move they're.
Speaker 6: Planning I don't know, I don't know, possible.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go and get to these events that
Speaker 2: occurred overseas. Just a quick rundown for you of what
Speaker 2: happened here. So you guys will probably recall, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you remember all of these details, but Manuel
Speaker 2: Macron calls these snap elections foolishly ultimately, and it was
Speaker 2: looking like the far right like Marine Lapenz party, was
Speaker 2: really surging, and they were, but there was this kind
Speaker 2: of coalition of you know, the anti Lapenn faction, bunch
Speaker 2: of macronal line people at a lot of leftists who
Speaker 2: joined together and were able to block them from an
Speaker 2: outright majority. And actually it turns out that the Left
Speaker 2: Party won the most seats in parliament, so you would
Speaker 2: think maybe that would give them some you know, governance
Speaker 2: power in terms of governance, but not so. Macron decided
Speaker 2: to make a deal with the not like far right party,
Speaker 2: but the center right party and put in place a
Speaker 2: prime minister that came from that faction, with the idea
Speaker 2: of being basically like I'm going to do move enough
Speaker 2: to the rite with this pick that Marine le Penn
Speaker 2: and her crew are not going to instantly vote against him.
Speaker 6: And instantly tank him.
Speaker 2: And so rather than trying to work together with the left,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this like you know, right of
Speaker 2: center coalition and try to you know, construct a government
Speaker 2: that way. So that has now come crashing down in
Speaker 2: spectacular fashion. We can put this up on the screen
Speaker 2: from Politico, they say, French government collapse turns the screws
Speaker 2: on Macron. The collapse of France's government on Wednesday night
Speaker 2: means it now finally falls to President Emmanuel Macron to
Speaker 2: step up and confront a snowballing political and economic crisis
Speaker 2: that risk sending shockwaves across the Eurozone. After a heated
Speaker 2: debate in the National Assembly marked by raucous jeers and boos,
Speaker 2: three hundred and thirty one of France's five hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy seven lawmakers voted to oust Prime Minister Michel Barnier
Speaker 2: in a vote of no confidence after he tried to
Speaker 2: force through an austere budget to fix the country's yawning deficits.
Speaker 2: Once he formally resigns, Barnier will become the shortest lived
Speaker 2: prime minister in the history of the modern French Republic
Speaker 2: and the first to be booted out by Parliament since
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two. So basically the lefties and the righty's
Speaker 2: and the right wing like l Penz faction, they voted
Speaker 2: together to oust this dude. That's how he went down.
Speaker 2: We can put this next piece up on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is Daniel Daniel Nashenian, who, in addition to doing
Speaker 2: great work covering politics here, also covers French politics in
Speaker 2: a way that's very useful.
Speaker 6: He says.
Speaker 2: The unnecessary July snap elections resulted in a wildly fragmented Assembly.
Speaker 2: As you'll know well if you were following you, that's
Speaker 2: what I was just referring to. Before the Left coalition
Speaker 2: got roughly one hundred and ninety seats, the Macronis parties
Speaker 2: got roughly one seventy, the far right got roughly one forty,
Speaker 2: Conservatives got roughly forty. Okay, so that's the smallest faction
Speaker 2: that Macron had partnered with here. In French, coalition that
Speaker 2: controls the Assembly gets to be Prime Minister and effectively
Speaker 2: govern the country with little input from the president if
Speaker 2: the PM and president are in different camps. But no
Speaker 2: election in the current regime had resulted in such a
Speaker 2: fragmented chamber. Put the next slides up on the screen
Speaker 2: that continues to explain this situation. He says, Macron, you'll
Speaker 2: also recall refuse to name a prime minister from the
Speaker 2: left coalition, saying that with only one third of the seats,
Speaker 2: they were too certain of losing a no confidence vote
Speaker 2: as soon as they came empowered that it's self provoked controversy.
Speaker 2: So instead he named this conservative Michael Barnier as Michelle
Speaker 2: Barniy as PM, formalizing a tacit alliance between his parties
Speaker 2: and this center right party. Overall, alliance only had about
Speaker 2: two hundred and ten on a five hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: seven seats, but the idea was this is the best
Speaker 2: way to get the far right to hold off on
Speaker 2: a no confidence vote and put the last one up
Speaker 2: on the screen here. So here we are either the
Speaker 2: pen changes their mind and lets Barney live another day.
Speaker 2: We now know that did not happen, either because he
Speaker 2: gives concessions or something else, or the cabinet falls and
Speaker 2: it's unclear what happened. Then there can be no new
Speaker 2: elections till the summer at the earliest. So that's kind
Speaker 2: of where things are right now. Sager, as far as
Speaker 2: like the analysts omerating online, no one really knows what
Speaker 2: happens next.
Speaker 1: It's it's crazy.
Speaker 2: It's like, I mean, the country is just basically ungovernable
Speaker 2: at this point. And you know, it really all does
Speaker 2: go back to that original decision from the Krone to
Speaker 2: hold the snap elections, and then rather than working with
Speaker 2: the left to he'd sort of allied with to be
Speaker 2: able to hold on to power, instead trying to please
Speaker 2: Lapena do enough to keep her from participating in the
Speaker 2: snow confidence vote.
Speaker 6: And now that has all kind of come apart.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is completely insane, and really what it
Speaker 1: is is that there are not a lot of easy choices,
Speaker 1: as you said, about where things go next, because now
Speaker 1: you have no prime minister. Also, Europe is in honestly
Speaker 1: like turmoil right now, not only with the election of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, but Germany is like torn right now over
Speaker 1: whether they should escalate the war in Ukraine or not.
Speaker 1: Their chancellor is like simultaneously visiting Kiev but also said
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to provide offensive weapons. They literally have
Speaker 1: no idea what to do, and so with the French,
Speaker 1: you know, Macron has been very hawkish on Ukraine, he's
Speaker 1: even floated, putting like French troops on the ground. But
Speaker 1: then you also have the budget crisis internally. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, the whole thing is nuts, just for
Speaker 1: like where things even go in the future. And I
Speaker 1: would say it's a major it's a major problem for
Speaker 1: them because Trump is going to use a lot of
Speaker 1: this as to his own advantage. Remember, Trump is going
Speaker 1: to be in France this weekend. He's gonna be You'll
Speaker 1: be in Paris on Saturday for the opening of the
Speaker 1: reopening of Notre Dame after it burned down. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: and so and him and Macrone famously got along very well.
Speaker 1: Macron played him like a fiddle. I watched it up close.
Speaker 1: He speaks perfect English. He's very you know, he's a
Speaker 1: glad handing shape shifter. He knows exactly what to do.
Speaker 1: You should see him in action with reporters who, by
Speaker 1: the way, he knows them all by It's amazing to
Speaker 1: watch to watch a foreign leader play Americans so well.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he has invited Trump, you know, to that
Speaker 1: opening famously. By the way, Trump is planning that he
Speaker 1: will be in charge of our two hundred and fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary party for the for July fourth, I think it's
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, will be America two fifty, which is
Speaker 1: going to be a big celebration. And he got the idea,
Speaker 1: remember for a military parade from the Best Deal Day,
Speaker 1: Oh My Brands, So apparently he'll be discussing some of
Speaker 1: that with him. It'll be interesting. It'll be interesting. But
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see the effects in terms of the
Speaker 1: French government and also the country and Europe itself, what
Speaker 1: they want to do and how they're going to handle
Speaker 1: a Donald Trump administration. I was looking at tariff charts
Speaker 1: just yesterday. We had very modest tariffs on European goods
Speaker 1: last time around, even with Trump in office. They were
Speaker 1: bitching about like a one percent increase. If Trump is
Speaker 1: able to get what he actually wants through, which is
Speaker 1: like ten to fifteen percent, it would decimate the European economy.
Speaker 1: They would be destroyed.
Speaker 2: What were they they were pissed off about the Biden administrations. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 1: The IRA has specific provisions within it that require certain
Speaker 1: percentage of the car to be eligible for a task
Speaker 1: credit has to be made in the United States. Yeah,
Speaker 1: both Canada and the Europeans hate.
Speaker 2: Well, and so they maybe I mean, Trump has that
Speaker 2: he wants to roll out stuff back, so they may
Speaker 2: I mean they may be. They may be pleased with
Speaker 2: some of the things that they.
Speaker 1: Might be pleased with that, but I mean in terms
Speaker 1: of raw goods and other stuff that we do, I mean,
Speaker 1: think about it, like, for every EV that we buy,
Speaker 1: probably ten volvos or whatever so comes over in terms
Speaker 1: of gas power vehicles. The amount of trade that we
Speaker 1: do with the EU is EV is very very small.
Speaker 1: Part of that. They were upset because they see that
Speaker 1: as a future market, but in general they're going to
Speaker 1: be if there's any real tariffs that go into place.
Speaker 1: Especially think about it. Right now, Europeans are heavily reliant
Speaker 1: on US LNG, and so that they previously they moved
Speaker 1: from Russian gas over to over to US LNG. We
Speaker 1: are the dominant energy sellers to the Europeans right now,
Speaker 1: so we have tremendous leverage over their economies. We could
Speaker 1: destroy them.
Speaker 6: Over there.
Speaker 2: They're all doing their version of the Joe and Mika Trump, Congratulations,
Speaker 2: I don't hate it. Congratulations on your incredible victory. You
Speaker 2: are such a genius like the Lenski's reading all that
Speaker 2: stuff out.
Speaker 1: I like to see Europeans in a suppliant mood. There's
Speaker 1: nothing that I hate more than when they lecture us.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, we will see.
Speaker 2: I thought this was funny from Arnau, our friend who
Speaker 2: we tried to book for today but he was busy.
Speaker 2: We'll get him on another time because he does such
Speaker 2: a great job. But put this up on the screen.
Speaker 2: Drawing some parallels with the wild events in South Korea
Speaker 2: this week, he says, run for election, overtake country from
Speaker 2: unpopular incumbent, promising you'll change things, perform even worse, stuck
Speaker 2: up to the US in very embarrassing ways. Run country's
Speaker 2: economy of the ground, be wildly unpopular, lose parliamentary majority,
Speaker 2: propose budget that's opposed by parliament, present opposition as illegitimate
Speaker 2: and anti democracy. Disregard electure results, be Emmanuel Macron pick unrelated.
Speaker 6: And the picture is of the South Korean dude who
Speaker 6: just tried to do the coup.
Speaker 2: So drawing some some parallels here, but you know, just
Speaker 2: to make the tie in with US politics. To wrap
Speaker 2: this up, you'll recall Sager when the Left Alliance was
Speaker 2: able to sort of block the you know, the Marine
Speaker 2: Lapen surge whatever, isn't that When ron Klain put on
Speaker 2: his tweet that was like, oh, interesting, incumbent with some
Speaker 2: thirty percent approval rating is able to maintain his position
Speaker 2: of power, basically saying like, oh, this will be Joe
Speaker 2: Biden's path back in. And I think they they really
Speaker 2: believed that they thought that the the you know, anti
Speaker 2: some would say anti fascist coalition that came together in France,
Speaker 2: that it would be a similar dynamic that would play
Speaker 2: out here in the US.
Speaker 6: And that was really the view, you.
Speaker 2: Know, the anti Trump coalition, like that was the bedrock
Speaker 2: view of the morning Joe's of the world of the
Speaker 2: run claims of the world of the whole, like Liz
Speaker 2: Cheney approach to politics, and David Pluff and all these people.
Speaker 6: They really thought that that was the way to win
Speaker 6: back the White House.
Speaker 1: And obviously, yeah, and clearly the radical reaction they thought
Speaker 1: was an aberration. So for example, you had Teresa May
Speaker 1: kind of become the like the inheritor of Brexit. She
Speaker 1: calls the snap election, she thinks she's gonna win chnds
Speaker 1: up losing. This leads to the disaster of Boris Johnson
Speaker 1: and of Rishi Sunach and now even keer Starmer. He's
Speaker 1: like tremendous, unpopular. It lives trust as well, you know
Speaker 1: that's right. But you know Nigel was more popular than
Speaker 1: ever before. You know, traditional conservative voters voted reform for
Speaker 1: the first time in the UK. Same in France. Macron
Speaker 1: rose on the promise that he would move past. He
Speaker 1: called himself jubyterarian, which is an amazing term to like
Speaker 1: move pack like almost a Napoleonic figure, rising above the
Speaker 1: traditional French mess of politics to lead Europe in a
Speaker 1: center left neoliberal direction. Remember Barack Obama endorsed him in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, and it's been a disaster. Angela Merkel, same thing,
Speaker 1: like the inheritor of that theory of Germany and of
Speaker 1: strong Europe and the United States didn't work out, has
Speaker 1: been replaced by Schultz. Hi himself is a mess, you know,
Speaker 1: in terms of the rise of the AfD now in Germany,
Speaker 1: so across the continent and really across the world. You
Speaker 1: watch as a lot of these anti or a lot
Speaker 1: of these incumbent figures are slowly dropping one by one.
Speaker 1: I don't know who's going to place Macron. It could
Speaker 1: be a socialist, it could be Marine Lefpan, but either
Speaker 1: way it's going to be pretty radical and shocking and
Speaker 1: different than what came likely very likely. His goal was
Speaker 1: to be a bulwark against that. And it's just they
Speaker 1: thought they could outlast the forces of Brexit, of Trump
Speaker 1: and all of that. And the truth is is that
Speaker 1: those were like not only nascent, but they've only grown
Speaker 1: even more as people have tried to push it down.
Speaker 1: So the Trump victory and the fall of these governments, yeah,
Speaker 1: and whatever come next is just a natural extension.
Speaker 2: Part of that global trend of anti incumbency too, where
Speaker 2: every single incumbent figure in the Western world and lost
Speaker 2: share and where did you see and India and India
Speaker 2: lost share. So anyway, the winds of change are blowing,
Speaker 2: whether our leaders listen to it or not.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, it'll be fun. It'll be fun to watch.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to the view. Couldn't help but
Speaker 1: get some of this in there, just to be clear.
Speaker 1: It's not just because it's the view, it's because we
Speaker 1: also found some interesting news about the Biden administration pondering
Speaker 1: parts for doctor Fauci. Liz Cheney and others. But before
Speaker 1: we get to that, there was an amazing moment between
Speaker 1: Charlemagne and Whoopi Goldberg where he calls her out because
Speaker 1: she defended Joe Biden, saying he never lied pardoning his
Speaker 1: son Hunter. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 4: Oh, you know, nobody's above the law. I respect you
Speaker 4: know the jury's decision in regard to my son.
Speaker 5: He didn't believe that, but he didn't have to volunteer
Speaker 5: that lie to begin with, I'm gonna stop you for
Speaker 5: a second only because you don't know that it was
Speaker 5: a lie.
Speaker 6: We don't know why he changed.
Speaker 4: You really think he just changed his mind over Thanksgiving weekend?
Speaker 6: All, I'm gonna tell you what I think.
Speaker 5: Okay, I think he changed his mind because he got
Speaker 5: sick of watching everybody else get over. And this is
Speaker 5: just my feeling because at some point you get to
Speaker 5: the place where you just go. So I'm just gonna
Speaker 5: follow the straight and narrow always because that's what's expected
Speaker 5: of Democrats.
Speaker 1: But that's default on.
Speaker 4: Out there, and they stand on this moral high ground.
Speaker 4: They don't have to do that.
Speaker 6: I'm a Democrat. Tell me what the moral high grounded?
Speaker 4: The moral high ground is nobody's above the law. I
Speaker 4: respect what the jurors is saying. He didn't know.
Speaker 5: You don't have to mad at him because he changed
Speaker 5: his by.
Speaker 4: The way, I'm not mad at him pardoning.
Speaker 5: What is it that makes people flip the out with
Speaker 5: Joe but we don't have the same kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't think people are flipping out with Joe.
Speaker 4: I think Democrats are flipping out with Joe because Democrats
Speaker 4: believe that they don't represent what he's currently representing. But
Speaker 4: that's just not true. That's why I say they stand
Speaker 4: on this moral high ground that simply does not exist.
Speaker 4: And I think this is also the problem when we
Speaker 4: pick sides, right, we've turned political parties into teams. I'm
Speaker 4: a Dallas Cowboys fan. Ain't nobody more delusion to me?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Okay, I feel like we're going to the super Bowl
Speaker 4: every year. But I'm not delusional. Well, no, that is delusion.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to political parties, if you pick
Speaker 4: a side, right, if you say you're a Democrat, if
Speaker 4: you say you're a Republican, you refuse to be objective
Speaker 4: about that anything.
Speaker 1: What do you even say about it? And look, it's
Speaker 1: the natural extension now of renegging on all of this
Speaker 1: previous discussion, because it's not only about the pardon for
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden, but the White House, let's put this on
Speaker 1: the screen, is now mulling pardons, preemptive sweeping pardons, just
Speaker 1: like the historic pardon of Hunter Biden, the most sweeping
Speaker 1: pardon in American history for quote unquote Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney,
Speaker 1: and doctor Anthony Fauci. You know what's actually amazing about this, Crystal,
Speaker 1: is that, specifically, previously, remember the Supreme Court case about
Speaker 1: presidential immunity and the Biden discussion around that, the entire
Speaker 1: liberal intelligentsia was attacking the very mechanism that Biden would
Speaker 1: have to employ to give this quote unquote sweeping pardon
Speaker 1: of all of these figures. It's kind of legally complicated,
Speaker 1: but I looked into it in terms of what previous
Speaker 1: people had said. But it has to do both with
Speaker 1: presidential immunity and the power of what it would take
Speaker 1: to actually enact something like this and legal and it
Speaker 1: specifically relies on that Supreme Court interpretation of the preemptive pardon.
Speaker 1: But more importantly, it's ridiculous from the point of the
Speaker 1: preemptive sweeping pardon. First of all, they told us that
Speaker 1: these people did nothing wrong, So why do they need
Speaker 1: a pardon? Especially fauci like that.
Speaker 2: That is the one that really, I mean, because you've
Speaker 2: got people who are coming in who have an enemy's list,
Speaker 2: who said they're going to like that's a good go
Speaker 2: after and have retribution against them, so to be like,
Speaker 2: you know, even if you ultimately think they're going to
Speaker 2: be found innocent in a court of law, even if
Speaker 2: you believe that, then you know, just the investigation and
Speaker 2: the invasion of privacy and the harassment and the legal
Speaker 2: bills like multi six figures of legal bills or whatever, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I support him pardoning these people because you can't.
Speaker 6: You can't, I mean, guys worth billions, don't try.
Speaker 2: To parton Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, char Arles Kushner, Denesh Tosuza,
Speaker 2: like the list goes on and on and whatever randos
Speaker 2: that his son brought in, who like paid enough money
Speaker 2: to get in the door. So am I going to
Speaker 2: cry a river about when you've got a guy coming
Speaker 2: in who campaign on retribution, who put into place the
Speaker 2: people to you know, make good on those promises. Am
Speaker 2: I going to cry about them being like, no, we're
Speaker 2: gonna you know, yes, we're gonna pardon these people. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure Democrats are going to run around saying like, oh,
Speaker 2: we don't want these pardons please, you know, like Adam
Speaker 2: Schiff has already said, like, oh I don't really want
Speaker 2: to pardon.
Speaker 6: Yes they do. They just want to keep their hands clean. Listen.
Speaker 2: My issue with all of this is just listen. If
Speaker 2: we're done with the norms, be done with the norms,
Speaker 2: and be done with the norms in not just a
Speaker 2: way that protects your elite buddies, which is what this is,
Speaker 2: or your son Hunter. Be done with the norms in
Speaker 2: a way that actually delivers for regular people. That's my
Speaker 2: real grievance here is not with taking this action, which
Speaker 2: I think given what Trump has said, what he campaign on,
Speaker 2: and who he put in place, whatever, no one should
Speaker 2: be surprised that Joe Biden is moving in this direction.
Speaker 2: But okay, if we're done with norms, then let's be
Speaker 2: done with norms. Let's also listen, Joebien, you campaigned on
Speaker 2: and Ryan pointed this out, you campaign on any of
Speaker 2: the death penalty. You've got forty inmates sitting on federal
Speaker 2: death throw right now, why not use these powers to
Speaker 2: commute their sentences if that's something that.
Speaker 6: You believe in, which I also believe in.
Speaker 2: By the way, if you've got non violent offenders that
Speaker 2: are in federal prisons, like, use these powers to help
Speaker 2: them out as well. That's more of my issue is
Speaker 2: when you're only using the powers to help your elite buddies.
Speaker 2: But again, I think you know, given what Trump said
Speaker 2: and who he's put into place, like, I'm not surprised
Speaker 2: and I'm not shocked and I'm not appalled by any
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, sure, I'm not shocked by it either,
Speaker 1: but it's just so first of all, it's so deeply
Speaker 1: hypocritical for what it all, like previously was. But I mean,
Speaker 1: the point on Fauci is that that actually would be
Speaker 1: directly antithetical to any accountability that I think we believe in.
Speaker 1: I mean not Fauci not only lied to the American people,
Speaker 1: but he genuinely perjured himself multiple times before the US
Speaker 1: Congress and was complicit in the lab leak and helped
Speaker 1: cover it up. If that's not a crime that should
Speaker 1: be you know, be prosecuted or whatever, then what is
Speaker 1: I mean, if we look back and we think about
Speaker 1: all the people who got away with the Iraq war,
Speaker 1: an you know, the great crimes of our life, like
Speaker 1: this is the poster child for what government accountability really
Speaker 1: should look like. Now, sure, I get the esthetic is not,
Speaker 1: you know, fun for a lot of people with whenever
Speaker 1: you combine Adam Schiff and with Liz Cheney. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, like if we believe in
Speaker 1: elite accountability, preemptive and sweeping pardons, yes, even if they
Speaker 1: are for somebody who wants a quote unquote target list
Speaker 1: or whatever, I just think it's wrong, you know, especially
Speaker 1: with if this person was held up as the figure
Speaker 1: and the father of American medicine, he was defended to
Speaker 1: the death by the media, by the government. I think
Speaker 1: he genuinely is a criminal, and he should face at
Speaker 1: least some accountability at the very least, okay, fine, a
Speaker 1: criminal prosecution or not real hearings, a real report, a
Speaker 1: real investigation. I think America deserves that after the fucking
Speaker 1: devastation of all of the years of COVID, I mean,
Speaker 1: did more damage to the public health system than anybody
Speaker 1: else probably in modern history. And so when you think
Speaker 1: about like preemptively pardoning him, especially too, if you think
Speaker 1: about it, with a lot of people who supported Donald
Speaker 1: Trump or even RFK Junior another a lot of that
Speaker 1: was built on the public health distrust. So if we
Speaker 1: believe in any sort of a lead accountability, I think
Speaker 1: a pardoner for Founch in particular, that's the one that
Speaker 1: got made you shift whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean, Listen, I think we should reform this unilateral
Speaker 2: power altogether. But the reality is there's a lot of
Speaker 2: selective outrage out there because when Trump was pardoning his
Speaker 2: buddies because they didn't want to testify against him, these
Speaker 2: same people who are outraged now didn't have a goddamn
Speaker 2: word to say. And unlike with Hunter Biden, where Joe
Speaker 2: Biden didn't come out and was like, I would never
Speaker 2: do that. You never said that about these people. So
Speaker 2: it's not like he lied in this instance or went
Speaker 2: back in his word. You know this, I think that
Speaker 2: there is a reasonable point to be made that it
Speaker 2: is ridiculous and you end up looking like a fool
Speaker 2: and losing if you are the only side that is
Speaker 2: still committed to these norms. And so that was the
Speaker 2: message that was sent by the American people in the selection,
Speaker 2: and you know that's this is the world we live
Speaker 2: in now. So if you wanted to live in a
Speaker 2: world where doctor Fauci was held accountable, then you should
Speaker 2: have objected. What you know, going back when Bill Clinton
Speaker 2: was letting his own brother off the hook, or when
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was letting Charles Kushner and Roger Stone Denesh
Speaker 2: to Susan all these people off the hook, Like, if
Speaker 2: you weren't outraged, then then spare me about you know,
Speaker 2: Adam Schiff getting apart.
Speaker 1: So just because people have not been ideologically consistent means
Speaker 1: we should all continue the race to the bottom. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's just like a rhetorically, this.
Speaker 6: Is where we are.
Speaker 2: This is where we are, and it's not just like
Speaker 2: you know, some of these people who I don't like,
Speaker 2: like I don't you know, it doesn't mean that they
Speaker 2: committed crimes. Trump and Cash like they literally have an
Speaker 2: enemy's list. He literally ran on retribution. And so you
Speaker 2: think that given that rhetoric and given putting into place
Speaker 2: the mechanism to follow through on that, that the other
Speaker 2: side's not going to respond, Like of course they would
Speaker 2: be full what Republicans would do the exact same shit.
Speaker 1: That is a fair argument. I don't disagree. It doesn't
Speaker 1: make it bad. I mean, it doesn't, you know, And
Speaker 1: I think that's what at least I'm trying to get it.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm focusing on the Fauci one Shift,
Speaker 1: Liz Chaney whatever, I mean, Has Liz Cheney committed a crime?
Speaker 1: I mean in a moral sense? Yes? And has Adam
Speaker 1: Shift committed a crime? Actually I don't know in terms
Speaker 1: of what that would look like with the Rush case,
Speaker 1: but with Fauci, I'm just so dead certain and so
Speaker 1: for him, like it would be like pardoning Scooter Libby,
Speaker 1: which who did that? By the way, which President Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: That's right? Who parted Scooter?
Speaker 6: But I don't remember.
Speaker 2: I don't remember a lot of outrage about that really
Speaker 2: from anyone right at that.
Speaker 1: Boy, that's true, but that doesn't mean that it's a
Speaker 1: good thing. And it's like, look, you're right, do we
Speaker 1: live in a race to the bottom politics and all
Speaker 1: this like nihilism and having matters? I mean, look, you
Speaker 1: might be right, you know, it's certainly possible. Is there
Speaker 1: any ideological consistency? No, But this is politics and this
Speaker 1: is Washington. It's always been that way. And in a
Speaker 1: sense with the Fauci thing, even in an Adam Schiff
Speaker 1: others or whatever, sweeping parties, but pardons that they would enact,
Speaker 1: it would be the ultimate admission maybe in a pr sense,
Speaker 1: that they didn't do anything wrong or sorry that they
Speaker 1: did do something to issue them.
Speaker 2: I don't really think that's true when you have I mean,
Speaker 2: just when you have the rhteric coming from Trump and
Speaker 2: the fact that I mean they previously in the past,
Speaker 2: like for example, they launched investigation into John Kerry to
Speaker 2: basically like politically harass him in the previous Trump administration.
Speaker 2: So and he was never found guilty of it. They
Speaker 2: never even filed charges against him.
Speaker 1: He's worth five hundred million leg sure, sure.
Speaker 2: I'm not crying a river for John Carrey. I'm just
Speaker 2: saying the example already exists where it doesn't require you know,
Speaker 2: guilt for them to come after these people, and they're
Speaker 2: already making lists and they're already threatening even like you know,
Speaker 2: talk show hosts Ari Melburn was threatened as one example.
Speaker 2: So I you know, maybe maybe they should issue blanket
Speaker 2: media pardons across the board too.
Speaker 1: Oh no, not, come on, it'd be better for the country.
Speaker 1: These people were taking off there. That would be that positive.
Speaker 6: So I think I thought you supported free space of
Speaker 6: course been pre speech.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Did I think it was a good thing.
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 1: Did I say it would be a need positive? Yes,
Speaker 1: it certainly would be. But it's like one of those
Speaker 1: where look, I think in general. First of all, do
Speaker 1: I believe that he will be coming after talk show hosts?
Speaker 6: No, I don't.
Speaker 1: Second, it's also, as I've said before, I also still
Speaker 1: believe in America's jurisprudence. If people genuinely are not guilty,
Speaker 1: Lady of that, then I think they'll probably be fine. Now, again,
Speaker 1: in this case of Fauci and of a few of
Speaker 1: the others that are supposedly on this list, it would
Speaker 1: be democrat. It would be anti democratic to actually prevent
Speaker 1: the government from being able to look into any of
Speaker 1: these things. And look, maybe you can make a high
Speaker 1: IQ argument for it in the way that Ford pardon Nixon,
Speaker 1: which was a crazy move when we look back on it.
Speaker 1: He was like, the country needs to heal when our
Speaker 1: long national nightmare is over and we need to move on.
Speaker 1: But I mean, did that really provide like the real
Speaker 1: justice that a lot of people want, Because it wasn't
Speaker 1: about Nixon. It was really about the entire machine, you know,
Speaker 1: beneath and below him. Was that really a salve to
Speaker 1: the wounds that people felt?
Speaker 2: I would say, no, here's my IQ take for you, Sagar,
Speaker 2: See what do you think of this one? If Fauchi's pardoned,
Speaker 2: then he can no longer plead the fifth true, and
Speaker 2: he's not in any legal jeopardy. He could say whatever,
Speaker 2: he can come clean, we could learn the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're not wrong. Maybe that would be Maybe that
Speaker 1: would be a good trade. Maybe we'll take that trade.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I do want to hear
Speaker 1: it from his mouth that he lied.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 1: I means, Look, we still need to know the details.
Speaker 1: Weren't we just talking about this? Exactly five years ago
Speaker 1: is when the first cases of COVID nineteen were beginning
Speaker 1: to come. Well, okay, the real first cases were when
Speaker 1: the lab leak happened in September twenty nineteen, as we
Speaker 1: all know. But the first like international cases that people
Speaker 1: were beginning to I think the first confirmed case in
Speaker 1: Wuhan was somewhere around.
Speaker 2: That was such a crazy time, and it was so
Speaker 2: wild too, because remember, at the beginning was like only
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson taking it seriously because there was like this
Speaker 2: like anti China lens to it, and then.
Speaker 1: It's true, totally we should have shut our borders, which
Speaker 1: totally flipps Ago. My friend Bology stream of and I'll
Speaker 1: never forget he called me a January of twenty and
Speaker 1: twenty and he's like, you guys need to watch out.
Speaker 1: He's like, this thing is coming.
Speaker 4: It's bad.
Speaker 1: He's the one first people.
Speaker 2: Who the one I remember is we had Matt Stoler
Speaker 2: on the show, Yeah Fab twenty two and he was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know why, we're just like bullshitting about whatever
Speaker 2: topic this is. In a few weeks, the whole country
Speaker 2: is going to be shut down and the whole world
Speaker 2: is going to be upended.
Speaker 6: And that's what it was. Right, it was right.
Speaker 1: I remember I was the first mask you know, I'm
Speaker 1: almost ashamed of it. I was one of the first
Speaker 1: people to work.
Speaker 2: Oh you were, yeah, I remember you were in soccer
Speaker 2: was masking way before me.
Speaker 1: I had the mask, I had all the emergency supplies
Speaker 1: when you can still get them on Amazon, So I
Speaker 1: was I was luckily early. I still have the goggles
Speaker 1: and my entire survival.
Speaker 6: Get it's crazy.
Speaker 2: It feels so surreal that all of that actually happens.
Speaker 1: It's a wild time. Yeah, absolutely, it was only five
Speaker 1: years ago. Crazy. Okay, that was a fun show. I
Speaker 1: honestly enjoyed. Today. We will have if we need to.
Speaker 1: We'll come in with breaking news over the weekend. Otherwise, yeah,
Speaker 1: you all on Monday.