Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here
Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of
Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.
Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade
Speaker 1: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent
Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,
Speaker 1: it means the absolute world to have your support. What
Speaker 1: are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at
Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. We have
Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have pristolla?
Speaker 1: Indeed we do first and foremost, Saga is back. Nice
Speaker 1: to have you that very nice to be back on
Speaker 1: the side of the Atlantic and congratulations are thank you
Speaker 1: as you appreciate it. Yes, we had fun eight Indian
Speaker 1: food the entire time and was London. No bangers in
Speaker 1: mash for me. Does Chilian like Indian food as much
Speaker 1: as you do? No, But you know, while we're in London,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those things we just kind
Speaker 1: of have to go with that. Okay, we did the
Speaker 1: whole high tea thing all right, so you know she
Speaker 1: got her fill a very good deal. All right, there's
Speaker 1: a lot to get into this morning. First of all,
Speaker 1: tomorrow is the one year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of news there. Also, we want
Speaker 1: to just take a look back at, you know, where
Speaker 1: we've been, where we are today, and especially we've got
Speaker 1: some maps, we've got some polling that can kind of
Speaker 1: assess how the American public feels about all of this,
Speaker 1: how the world feels about this, and just what has
Speaker 1: happened on the battlefield since the launch of that invasion
Speaker 1: a year ago. Also, potential Trump indictments coming down from
Speaker 1: that Grand Jury in Georgia and the fore Woman is
Speaker 1: something else. We will show you a little bit of
Speaker 1: that and tell you what we know. Also, Trump visited
Speaker 1: East Palestine yesterday. Democrats continue to be sort of completely absent.
Speaker 1: The NTSB report is expected to come out today, and
Speaker 1: we're getting new revelations about that water testing that was
Speaker 1: conducted apparently by the railroad twenty twenty four news rumblings
Speaker 1: that isn't actually gonna run taking but you know, it's
Speaker 1: important to report on it. At the same time, kind
Speaker 1: of I have to say, as we predicted sagar as
Speaker 1: Trump has been out there basically by himself running for
Speaker 1: president on the Republican side. His hand is strengthening, he
Speaker 1: is increasing in the polls, so you know he's still
Speaker 1: the one to beat ultimately. We also have Sean Hannity
Speaker 1: talking to Marjorie Taylor Green about her big national divorce idea.
Speaker 1: I commented on this earlier this week with Emily, but
Speaker 1: interesting to wait, well, we had to make sure to
Speaker 1: bring it back for you, so everybody can hear your
Speaker 1: thoughts as well. But let's go ahead and start with
Speaker 1: what is going on in Ukraine? All right, So let's
Speaker 1: go ahe and put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 1: President Biden visiting Kiev and giving a major speech as
Speaker 1: well as another one in Warsaw after President Vladimir Putin
Speaker 1: delivered one in Russia. I reiterating in the unending commitment
Speaker 1: both to NATO the Eastern Flank and specifically to Ukraine
Speaker 1: and ongoing continued military support. Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 1: He thought he'd get the fidelization of NATO. Instead he
Speaker 1: got the nataization of Finland and Sweden. You thought NATO
Speaker 1: would fracture and divide. Instead, NATO is more united and
Speaker 1: more unified than ever. Our support you for grained, will
Speaker 1: not waiver, NATO will not be divided, and we will
Speaker 1: not tire so reiterating there that it's actually made NATO stronger.
Speaker 1: It actually has increased military dispending of course Finland and
Speaker 1: Sweden on the process of possibly being admitted. But since
Speaker 1: it's the one year, you know, we got to take
Speaker 1: a step back almost from the current developments and just
Speaker 1: say what's happening and where will these things end? Obviously
Speaker 1: we've been covering the war almost for the entire year.
Speaker 1: Was a big moment for breaking points is when many
Speaker 1: are of our viewers and our listeners actually joined us.
Speaker 1: And it hasn't always been easy, been wrong a lot,
Speaker 1: and I think that's fine. But one of the interviews
Speaker 1: here by respected historian at Princeton Stephen Kocken, I actually
Speaker 1: think did a fantastic job of just summing everything up
Speaker 1: in an interview in The New Yorker with David Remlock.
Speaker 1: Let's put this up on the screen. I'm gonna read
Speaker 1: from this one particular passage in particular, he says, David
Speaker 1: Remneck kind of challenging Stephen Kotkin. Last year, you told
Speaker 1: me that Ukraine was winning on Twitter, but that Russia
Speaker 1: was winning on the battlefield. A lot has happened since then.
Speaker 1: Is that's still the case? He says, quote, Unfortunately. Let's
Speaker 1: think of a house. Let's say you own a house
Speaker 1: and it has ten rooms. Let's say I barge in
Speaker 1: and take two of those rooms away. I wreck those rooms.
Speaker 1: From those two rooms, I'm wrecking your other eight rooms.
Speaker 1: And you're trying to beat me back. You're trying to
Speaker 1: evict me from the two rooms. You push out a corner,
Speaker 1: you push out another corner, maybe, but I'm still there.
Speaker 1: I'm still wrecking. The thing is, you need your house.
Speaker 1: That's where you live. It's your house. You don't have
Speaker 1: another house. Me. I have another house. My other house
Speaker 1: has a thousand rooms. So if I wreck your house,
Speaker 1: are you winning or am I winning? Unfortunately, that's the
Speaker 1: situation that we're in. Ukraine has beaten back the Russian
Speaker 1: attempt to conquer their country. They have defended their capital,
Speaker 1: They've pushed the Russians out of some of their land
Speaker 1: that the Russians conquered. Since February twenty fourth, they've regained
Speaker 1: about half of it. And yet they need their house
Speaker 1: and the Russians are wrecking it. Putin's strategy could be
Speaker 1: described as I can't have it, then nobody can have it. Sadly,
Speaker 1: that is where the tragedy is right now. And I
Speaker 1: thought that was a fantastic way of kind of summing
Speaker 1: it all up. In terms of what absolute victory would
Speaker 1: look like on the Russian side, is that a defeat?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, on relative terms, yes, in terms
Speaker 1: of international prestige, however, you know, the ongoing attrition in
Speaker 1: the war against Ukraine is of course just making you know,
Speaker 1: is devastating the country, requiring hundreds of billions of dollars
Speaker 1: untold amounts of ammunition. You know. While I was in
Speaker 1: the UK, I couldn't help but listen to some of
Speaker 1: the news, I mean, and in terms of what the
Speaker 1: revelations are about the NATO chiefs that were meeting in
Speaker 1: Europe while I was gone, was the cry for ammo, Ammo, ammo.
Speaker 1: The amount of AMMO that Ukraine is using right now
Speaker 1: on the battlefield is just unbelievable. And that's actually before
Speaker 1: the Russian offensive has even kicked off. There are some
Speaker 1: rumblings today we may have, you know, have to do
Speaker 1: a breaking news segment or something, because right tomorrow is
Speaker 1: officially the one year anniversary of the war, that's why,
Speaker 1: or the invasion, that's why we're covering it this way.
Speaker 1: Right now Ukraine is saying that there are major signs
Speaker 1: of Russian offensive exactly tomorrow on February twenty fourth, which
Speaker 1: is only going to require even more bloodshed, ammunition, and
Speaker 1: expenditure on their part. And the reason why I thought
Speaker 1: that interview was important is there is an ongoing recognition
Speaker 1: here in Washington amongst the elites. They're like, this is
Speaker 1: going to be a long one and total victory does
Speaker 1: not appear in sight for anybody. Let's put this up
Speaker 1: there from Fiona Hill. She was writing in unheard So
Speaker 1: the reason why this is important is Fiona Hill is
Speaker 1: possibly one of the most hawkish elements of the Trump
Speaker 1: administration on Russia, very pro Ukraine and all that, and
Speaker 1: still writing a column which you know, frankly takes some
Speaker 1: courage at least by telling the truth in Washington saying quote,
Speaker 1: absolute victory over Russia just is not possible. The former
Speaker 1: Trump advisor on the West mistakes in Ukraine. She says
Speaker 1: specifically within all of this interview that what she given
Speaker 1: her advice in the Bush administration and what happened with
Speaker 1: George W. Bush. She says that there is no possibility
Speaker 1: of quote, absolute victory for Russia of the idea that
Speaker 1: the Putin regime was going to fall of some sort
Speaker 1: of grand you know, some sort of grand idea that
Speaker 1: the Ukraine's are not only going to push Russia back
Speaker 1: through the February twenty four borders, but take back all
Speaker 1: of CRIMEA. Yeah, if you combine Crystal, I think the
Speaker 1: cot Can view, the Fiona Hill view, that Washington Post
Speaker 1: article that we covered before I left, where there was
Speaker 1: basically a note from the Biden people who are like, look,
Speaker 1: this is it the blank check pretty much as dried
Speaker 1: up in Congress with Republicans, America's moving on and after this, however,
Speaker 1: you guys do in the offensive where you're going to
Speaker 1: have to try and figure out some sort of solution
Speaker 1: because you know, your endless supply of ammunition and all that,
Speaker 1: it's just not sustainable. And we are already covered so
Speaker 1: many stories here about how the war in Ukraine has
Speaker 1: massively depleted American stockpiles of ammunition, our own defense readiness,
Speaker 1: and in the context of any other conflict. We're probably
Speaker 1: weaker right now than we have been in a long
Speaker 1: time in terms of our defense readiness, not that many
Speaker 1: of the hawks who care about that in Washington will
Speaker 1: ever tell you. So it's a crazy situation look at
Speaker 1: it geopolitically, and just like what the actual state is
Speaker 1: in terms of where things can move from here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a growing sort of elite awareness that absolute
Speaker 1: victory over Russia was a fantasy. And Katkin talks about
Speaker 1: the fact that everybody was hoping for these sort of
Speaker 1: shortcut solutions to the war, like, oh, maybe there'll be
Speaker 1: a domestic revolt in Russia that will topple the Putin regime.
Speaker 1: Not happening, ain't happening, so that one's off the table.
Speaker 1: There were all of these rumors and fantasies that maybe
Speaker 1: Putin's really ill and maybe he's like an honest deathbed
Speaker 1: and he's about to die. No real sign that that
Speaker 1: is coming to pass either. So all of the shortcut
Speaker 1: hopes for ending this conflict have faded out of you,
Speaker 1: and so then what are you left with. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're not going to achieve a total victory over Russia,
Speaker 1: which again is not our assessment, it's the assessment now
Speaker 1: of the Rand Corporation, it's reportedly, according to the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: the assessment of US intelligence agencies. It'spparently the assessment of
Speaker 1: Fiona Hill, an assessment of Stephen kak And who's a
Speaker 1: liberal historian. By the way of Russia and the Soviet Union, Well,
Speaker 1: then this is going to end at the negotiating table.
Speaker 1: That's where we're ultimately headed. It's a question of who's
Speaker 1: in what position when you get to that negotiating table
Speaker 1: and what ultimately the terms are going to be. Because
Speaker 1: the other thing cock Can points out is right now,
Speaker 1: you're in a war of attrition, and the way that
Speaker 1: you win a war of attrition is by number one,
Speaker 1: disrupting your enemy's ability to produce manufacture weapons. There was
Speaker 1: a thought that the sanctions that we levied on Russia,
Speaker 1: which were quite overwhelming and in concert with a lot
Speaker 1: of our allies, that that would effectively disrupt their manufacturing capability.
Speaker 1: That has come to not and at the same time,
Speaker 1: so one way is to disrupt their production, that's one
Speaker 1: thing you want to do. The other piece you want
Speaker 1: to do is ramp up your own production. Well, we're
Speaker 1: not doing that. What we're doing is drawing down our stockpiles,
Speaker 1: and we're getting to a place where we're going to
Speaker 1: be limited in our ability to that. So okay, you're
Speaker 1: not going to win the war of attrition either. And
Speaker 1: I thought the way kat Kin talked about how do
Speaker 1: you think about victory? Because part of this is all right, well,
Speaker 1: what do you actually define as a win for Ukraine?
Speaker 1: And let me read to you what he ultimately says,
Speaker 1: because his conclusion is I'm in favor of a Ukrainian victory.
Speaker 1: This isn't some like go Russia. Putin's actually right, dude,
Speaker 1: He's in favor of Ukrainian victory. I'm against the Russian victory,
Speaker 1: but I'm defining a Ukrainian victory within the circumstances in
Speaker 1: which we live now. He says, their definition of victory
Speaker 1: is expressed by President Salski, who has certainly more than
Speaker 1: risen to the occasion, is to regain every inch of territory,
Speaker 1: to have reparations, to have war crimes tribunals. So how
Speaker 1: would Ukraine enact that definition of victory? They would have
Speaker 1: to take Moscow. Do you all think that that's likely?
Speaker 1: Do you think that would be good? How else can
Speaker 1: you get reparations and war crime tribunals. They're not that
Speaker 1: close to regaining every inch of their own territory, let
Speaker 1: alone those other aims. Here's a better definition of victory.
Speaker 1: Ukrainians rose up against their domestic tyrants. Why because they
Speaker 1: wanted to join Europe. It's the same goal they have now,
Speaker 1: and that has to be the definition of victory Ukraine
Speaker 1: gets into the European Union. If Ukraine regains all of
Speaker 1: its territory and doesn't get into the EU, is that
Speaker 1: a victory as opposed to if Ukraine regains as much
Speaker 1: of a territory as it physically can on the battlefield,
Speaker 1: not all of it potentially, but does get EU a session.
Speaker 1: Would that be a definition of victory? Of course it
Speaker 1: would be. And then he goes on to talk about
Speaker 1: those dynamics I was just mentioning before with the War
Speaker 1: of Attrition and how it is impossible that they're going
Speaker 1: to achieve this total victory that they have imagined and
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration has allowed to persist as some
Speaker 1: sort of logical endpoint to this, when in reality it's
Speaker 1: an impossible fantasy. YEA, So let's put the maps and
Speaker 1: I think this actually really hammers home Stephen Cootkin's point.
Speaker 1: These are four maps. So right there you could see
Speaker 1: on February twenty third, exactly twenty twenty two, a year ago,
Speaker 1: where the occupied region where the Russian backed separatists. And
Speaker 1: then you have Crimea. So then we have March thirtieth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, we have occupation in the north all
Speaker 1: basically along the Russian Belarussian border up from Crimea into
Speaker 1: eastern Ukraine, so significant gains. Then you have the August
Speaker 1: thirty first lines where you had the Russian controlled areas.
Speaker 1: That's the third map for those who are watching. And
Speaker 1: then finally you kind of have the November thirtieth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two map, which shows some of the massive gains
Speaker 1: that were made by the Ukrainians in their offensive and
Speaker 1: have put things to where we are right now with
Speaker 1: the currently fluctuating front line. But the point that I
Speaker 1: think we should really look at is when we look
Speaker 1: at retaken territory, that's fantastic. You still see a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot of red on that map cours and
Speaker 1: that's exactly what he's pointing to, is that with all
Speaker 1: the red in that map, you know, for all of
Speaker 1: the one hundred billion dollars from now that we've appropriated
Speaker 1: to Ukraine, I think we've dispensed about half of that.
Speaker 1: We have indications from the Biden administration that Ukraine by
Speaker 1: the end of the summer is going to expend all
Speaker 1: of the aid that the US military has given them.
Speaker 1: It would require even more acts of Congress to appropriate that.
Speaker 1: That doesn't look very likely. Republican coalition, and one of
Speaker 1: the things we're about to talk about too is, look,
Speaker 1: we have been the staunchest, most hawkish allies, and we
Speaker 1: are bankrolling this war ten times more than any other
Speaker 1: nation in all of Europe, simply because of capacity, and
Speaker 1: because we basically underwrite the Europeans. Well, we already know
Speaker 1: they're not going to step up. They have crippling inflation,
Speaker 1: and they don't have the capacity even if they wanted to.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look at the UK and you know,
Speaker 1: for all the tanks and all that, most of what
Speaker 1: Ukraine is using on the battlefield are bullets and artillery
Speaker 1: and missiles, and for all the intelligence and all that,
Speaker 1: that requires a tremendous amount of raw industrial production. We
Speaker 1: also have major meeting that's happening today. President putin meeting
Speaker 1: with China's top diplomat, Wang Yi, and in that we
Speaker 1: are searing rumblings from the US intelligence community that they
Speaker 1: are quickly going to declassify in indications that the Chinese
Speaker 1: are considering sending lethal aid to Russia, something they have
Speaker 1: not thought about before. Let's think about it from their perspective,
Speaker 1: this is the greatest thing that China could ever wish for.
Speaker 1: Why because the more that this conflict goes on, the
Speaker 1: more American weapons that pour into Ukraine and from the
Speaker 1: NATO alliance. This is taking a tremendous amount of expenditure. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: you know, the economic cost of the war has got
Speaker 1: to be in the trillions of dollars. Whenever you consider
Speaker 1: the energy impact of the disruption to the global supply
Speaker 1: chain wheat. I mean, who even knows the one day
Speaker 1: the eventual accounting will we made one hundred years from
Speaker 1: now when you can write about it this passionately, and
Speaker 1: you are never going to you will barely be able
Speaker 1: to believe, you know what the chicanery that's probably gone
Speaker 1: from the global financial system. Obviously we survived here in
Speaker 1: the West, but you know, there's a lot of poverty
Speaker 1: actually that was written across the world. So when you
Speaker 1: consider all that, China's got no incentive. But you know,
Speaker 1: initially it was like, oh, China's got egg on its
Speaker 1: face all of that. Just yesterday, what do they do.
Speaker 1: They put out a statement and they were like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the US's fault. This is entire happening. This is
Speaker 1: the usagemony. When Ye's visit to Moscow is no accident,
Speaker 1: especially after all this balloon stuff and more of the
Speaker 1: frosty relations, and it wouldn't be a surprise, for a
Speaker 1: shock at all for them to contain you start or
Speaker 1: just start shipping lethal weapons to and if that happens,
Speaker 1: I mean, then look, what have we done. We've this
Speaker 1: is the nightmare that Nixon and Kissinger went out of
Speaker 1: their way to stop, which is a total alliance between
Speaker 1: communist China and then the Soviet Union. We always recognize
Speaker 1: that having split between the two is to the strategic
Speaker 1: benefit of the United States. So anyway, I think that's
Speaker 1: a grand picture of where things are. It's very possible
Speaker 1: there can be some breaking news tomorrow in the one
Speaker 1: year anniversary, but going forward, it just looks like things
Speaker 1: are relatively stuck and brutal fighting ahead in the months
Speaker 1: to come, and the summer very likely to be a
Speaker 1: major decision point for the West, for Ukraine, and for Russia.
Speaker 1: At the same time, as you alluded to, and as
Speaker 1: I did as well, polling is showing softening support here
Speaker 1: in the US, especially among Republicans, but not only among Republicans.
Speaker 1: It's going to put this up on the screen. Forty
Speaker 1: eight percent, according to the AP, now say that they
Speaker 1: favor the US providing weapons to Ukraine, with twenty nine
Speaker 1: percent opposed, in twenty two percent saying they're neither in
Speaker 1: favor nor opposed. Back in May of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: less than three months into the war, it was not
Speaker 1: forty eight percent. It was sixty percent of US adults
Speaker 1: who said they were in favor of sending Ukraine weapons.
Speaker 1: So you've seen significant erosion to now it's below majority support.
Speaker 1: You have Americans about evenly divided on sending government funds
Speaker 1: directly to Ukraine, so not shipping weapons, but actually just
Speaker 1: sending aid and support, thirty seven percent in favor and
Speaker 1: thirty eight percent opposed, with twenty three percent saying neither.
Speaker 1: And you also have dismal views of Biden's handling. At
Speaker 1: this point, only nineteen percent of Americans say they have
Speaker 1: a great deal of confidence in Biden's ability to handle
Speaker 1: the situation. Thirty seven percent say they have some confidence,
Speaker 1: forty three percent say they have hardly any And also,
Speaker 1: by the way, you know, at the beginning of this conflict,
Speaker 1: IgA remember we were covering with some credulity the polling
Speaker 1: saying that Americans will, like, we will pay higher gas
Speaker 1: prices if it means supporting Ukraine. They're not quite feeling
Speaker 1: the same way to those days. Fifty nine percent now
Speaker 1: say limiting damage to the US economy is more important
Speaker 1: than effectively sanctioning Russia, even if that means sanctions are
Speaker 1: less effective. Back in March of twenty two, the situation
Speaker 1: was reverse. A majority fifty five percent said it was
Speaker 1: a bigger priority to sanction Russia effectively. And you can
Speaker 1: see we're going to talk more about Trump in this show,
Speaker 1: but you can see this guy's sniffed down where the
Speaker 1: wins are heading. He can see not only a clear
Speaker 1: divide on Ukraine that he can capitalize in the GOP primary,
Speaker 1: but also it's a smart bet for the general election.
Speaker 1: In terms, this is increasingly going to become a partisan issue,
Speaker 1: which I actually think is really unfortunate because there's no
Speaker 1: reason why the line should be drawn in a clearly
Speaker 1: partisan way. But you can see independence in particular, moving
Speaker 1: more to Ukraine, skepticism and wondering, hey, how does this end?
Speaker 1: How does this end? Which I have never heard Joe
Speaker 1: Biden be able to articulate, not even that, just because look,
Speaker 1: this is only February twenty third, this is before even
Speaker 1: the heavy fighting season. What's going to happen in the
Speaker 1: summer When look, Biden says no more a to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: we all know that they're going to at least ask
Speaker 1: Congress and try and blame the Republicans when they're like, no,
Speaker 1: actually we need another fifty billion for an extra six months,
Speaker 1: and then that would bring the total to one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty billion, more than we've ever spent on any
Speaker 1: foreign military aid ever in American history, going all the
Speaker 1: way back to the beginning of the Republic. Really, I mean,
Speaker 1: just consider what that will look like, and then think
Speaker 1: about it a year later. Let's say there's some miracle
Speaker 1: that that path, or not even a miracle, you know,
Speaker 1: sas there's a lot of bipartis to support. Let's say
Speaker 1: that extra fifty billion, put it a year from now,
Speaker 1: or even a year and a half in the midst
Speaker 1: of the twenty twenty for election, and you can just
Speaker 1: sniff out exactly where the trends here are all going. Now,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say, you know, I wouldn't bank on it
Speaker 1: saying that there's no more aid or you know that
Speaker 1: the conflict. Look, the conflict could even be over by that.
Speaker 1: We may not even be talking about it. I highly
Speaker 1: doubt it, but it's certainly a possibility politically though. Trump
Speaker 1: is clearly on the moving side of this issue, and
Speaker 1: support has eroding exactly as I think we both predicted
Speaker 1: this entire time. Another really important one is how is
Speaker 1: the rest of the world feeling? And this is where look,
Speaker 1: you know, global public opinion is also always difficult, So
Speaker 1: take some of these with a grain of salt, but
Speaker 1: I think we could take from this at least something.
Speaker 1: So let's put this up there on the screen. It
Speaker 1: shows various different countries, not only the United States, but
Speaker 1: many others. So we have and we can go ahead,
Speaker 1: guys and put up a six please, is you have India,
Speaker 1: which has a fifty four percent, saying that the ConFlat
Speaker 1: between Russian and Ukraine needs to stop as soon as possible,
Speaker 1: even if it means Ukraine giving up control of territory Turkey,
Speaker 1: and I'll remind you Turkey is a NATO ally saying
Speaker 1: forty forty eight percent. Russia say say forty four percent,
Speaker 1: China they say forty two the EU, Great Britain, in
Speaker 1: the United States with the much lowest. But you also
Speaker 1: see a major approval of this statement, of course in Russia,
Speaker 1: saying Western dominance of the world needs to be pushed backed,
Speaker 1: even if it means accepting Russian territorial aggression. Thirty percent
Speaker 1: of RUSSI apparently supporting that. Very minimal numbers in India
Speaker 1: and in Turkey, but at least twelve percent there in China.
Speaker 1: And then finally you have Ukraine needs to regain all
Speaker 1: of its territory, with some moderate support there from India
Speaker 1: and Turkey, zero support in Russia, moderate support in China,
Speaker 1: but then significant support or the most significant really in
Speaker 1: the EU, in Great Britain and here in the US.
Speaker 1: So I think looking at that and then also really
Speaker 1: just considering the way that people look at Russia and
Speaker 1: also with the United States. There's a separate part here
Speaker 1: where they ask whether they which best best reflects your
Speaker 1: view on Russia as it pertains to your country. In
Speaker 1: the US, fifty five percent say it's an adversary, in
Speaker 1: the EU fifty four percent. In Great Britain they say
Speaker 1: sixty five percent. But in India fifty one percent say
Speaker 1: it's a necessary partner which we must strategically cooperate, and
Speaker 1: some say it's even an ally that shares our interest
Speaker 1: and values. China and Russia is the same way, and
Speaker 1: significantly also in Turkey, fifty five and fourteen percent, respectively,
Speaker 1: both say that Russia is a necessary partner and an
Speaker 1: ally reflecting, you know, the difference of how Turkey, which
Speaker 1: is a key NATO member, has behaved in all of this,
Speaker 1: and part of the reason why the initial talks between
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Russia, some of it was being broken in Istanbul.
Speaker 1: So how Istanbul and Erdowan specifically navigate future NATO expansion
Speaker 1: that's still not a guarantee with Finland and with Sweden
Speaker 1: from what I've read so far, but also what the
Speaker 1: future looks like in terms of a NATO participatory who
Speaker 1: might be able to speak, you know, with both sides
Speaker 1: of the conflict and bring things to an end. You
Speaker 1: can see some inclination of what that all would look like.
Speaker 1: I think what is really clear when you look at
Speaker 1: all of these polls, and they have a lot of
Speaker 1: interesting breakdowns here, is that the West, and especially the
Speaker 1: US and the UK have one view of this conflict
Speaker 1: and one view of Russia, and the rest of the
Speaker 1: world has a very different view. And if you'll recall Soger,
Speaker 1: when Lula was here from Bill and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of shock over his comments about the war and
Speaker 1: about his desire to remain neutral so that he could
Speaker 1: potentially serve in some sort of a diplomatic war role
Speaker 1: to ultimately broker a piece. There was a lot of
Speaker 1: shock about those comments, but in reality, he's reflecting what
Speaker 1: most of the rest of the world thinks about this conflict.
Speaker 1: And the one that stood out to me the most
Speaker 1: is they ask this question, Okay, what do you think
Speaker 1: is the main reason the US stands behind Ukraine? And
Speaker 1: the only people who are really buying the like it's
Speaker 1: about democracy is the US. The other even the other
Speaker 1: European countries, they see it more as either to defend
Speaker 1: Western dominance or to defend our own security. So they
Speaker 1: don't see it as much of this big conflict over
Speaker 1: democratic values. They see it as more of a classic
Speaker 1: geopolitical strategic interest kind of a conflict. And certainly, you know, China, Russia, Turkey,
Speaker 1: and India see it more that way as well. Russia
Speaker 1: and China say this is we're involved with Ukraine to
Speaker 1: defend Western dominance, and Turkey says predominantly to defend our
Speaker 1: own security. So the rest of the world is not
Speaker 1: viewing this as this grand conflict over values in the
Speaker 1: gloss that we put on it. They're seeing it in
Speaker 1: a much more sort of realism or realist way perspective,
Speaker 1: which I think is interesting as well. Absolutely, So that's
Speaker 1: where it is in terms of Ukraine right now. It
Speaker 1: gave you the first top kind of a summary of
Speaker 1: where things might be headed, and second with global public
Speaker 1: opinion and where things are. And just keep in mind,
Speaker 1: you know, the longer this thing goes on, the trend
Speaker 1: is only going in one direction and the ain going
Speaker 1: the other way. Even if Russian attacks have actually increased,
Speaker 1: as possible a new renewed Russian offensive could change things,
Speaker 1: but I don't see how that would ever change the
Speaker 1: shock of the initial bombing of Kiev and much of
Speaker 1: the brutality that we saw in those early days. Now
Speaker 1: is really just you know, battle of attrition and then
Speaker 1: the air war in terms of bombings and all that
Speaker 1: that been going on so absent that it's very likely
Speaker 1: that this all will move in a similar direction going.
Speaker 1: I mean, sadly, that's probably the best case scenario, because
Speaker 1: certainly Russia has other tools and other weapons that they
Speaker 1: could deploy, not just in Ukraine but around the world.
Speaker 1: So a grinding, horrifying war of attrition that involves much
Speaker 1: more economic destruction and many more deaths, including civilian deaths,
Speaker 1: is probably in the short term like the best case scenario,
Speaker 1: which is absolutely horrifying. Okay, big domestic news this broke
Speaker 1: just yesterday that grand jury in Georgia in that Trump
Speaker 1: inquiry about the fake elector schemes specifically in that state,
Speaker 1: they recommended multiple indictments. This is according to the Fore Women.
Speaker 1: Fore Women has had a lot to say. Let me
Speaker 1: read a little bit of details from the article. They say,
Speaker 1: a special grand jury that investigated election interference by former
Speaker 1: President Trump and his allies in Georgia recommended indictments for
Speaker 1: multiple people on a range of charges in their final report,
Speaker 1: most of which remains sealed. Special grand juries. This is
Speaker 1: important to note in Georgia do not have indictment powers themselves.
Speaker 1: Fanny t Willis, who's the District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia.
Speaker 1: She's led the investigation and she will ultimately decide what
Speaker 1: charges to bring before a regular grand jury. So this
Speaker 1: group can recommend and then Fanny t Willis will make
Speaker 1: the decision what to then take to a regular grand jury.
Speaker 1: So that's important to note. Now, let's talk about this
Speaker 1: jury for a woman, because she made a number of
Speaker 1: cryptic comments and then made a number of strange cable
Speaker 1: news TV appearances that have just not been great in
Speaker 1: terms of this whole situation. So she initially was asked
Speaker 1: by The New York Times whether the jurors had recommended
Speaker 1: indicting Trump. She would not answer directly, but said, quote,
Speaker 1: you're not going to be shocked. It's not rocket science,
Speaker 1: adding you won't be too surprised. I will tell you
Speaker 1: that if the judge releases the recommendations, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be some giant plot twist. You probably have a
Speaker 1: fair idea of what may be in there. I'm trying
Speaker 1: very hard to say that delicately. First, let me get
Speaker 1: your reaction to that, because it feels to me like
Speaker 1: she is very strongly suggesting that Trump is going to
Speaker 1: be indicted. But then I mean, I don't really know,
Speaker 1: and nobody really knows other than these people, but it
Speaker 1: seems like she really wants to come all the way
Speaker 1: up to the edge of saying Trump's going to be
Speaker 1: indicted without technically violating like whatever secrecy she's supposed to
Speaker 1: keep if she was a rational person, And I'll show
Speaker 1: you a little bit why I think she might be irrational.
Speaker 1: That's the way I would have read it. But also,
Speaker 1: you can't probably underestimate the fact this is clearly a
Speaker 1: person who's enjoying fifteen minutes of fame, teasing the media her,
Speaker 1: you know, a little time in the spotlight, and it's
Speaker 1: possible that she could be ginning everybody up and trying
Speaker 1: to give out some right. So I'm actually on the
Speaker 1: mind that this all could just be a fake media
Speaker 1: side show for Edigut on TV. True, because what I
Speaker 1: kept asking me is like, she says, Okay, you're not
Speaker 1: going to be surprised, Well, what would be more surprising
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't get indicted or Trump is indicted, right, it
Speaker 1: would be more indicting former president of the United States
Speaker 1: is pretty shocking development. I don't know if you call
Speaker 1: it surprising at this point, but maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: So that's why I find it surprising. I don't know
Speaker 1: what to make of all of this. But she also,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before she went on CNN, it was
Speaker 1: a strange appearance. Let's take a little and how that went.
Speaker 1: Our indictment's recommended, of course, is it more than twelve people?
Speaker 1: Is it more than twenty people? I think if you
Speaker 1: look at the page numbers of the report, there's about
Speaker 1: six pages in the middle that got cut out allow
Speaker 1: for spacing. It's not a short list, not a short list.
Speaker 1: More personally, we want to hear from the former I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear from the former president, but honestly, I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to disappeared the former president because I
Speaker 1: got to swear everybody in, and so I thought it'd
Speaker 1: be really cool to get sixty seconds with President Trump
Speaker 1: of me looking at him and being like, do you
Speaker 1: solemnly swear I'm beginning to swear him in. I just
Speaker 1: I kind of just thought that would be an awesome moment.
Speaker 1: And if it was just a perjury charge or perjury charges,
Speaker 1: would that be acceptable too. That's fine. I will be
Speaker 1: happy as long as something happens. I mean, I see
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, and she seems stone cold crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honesk you like. I mean, listen, it's
Speaker 1: never been on TV before. Nervous laughter. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but here's what I'll say. Go and put this next
Speaker 1: piece up on the screen. So there's already news from
Speaker 1: Robert Costa that CBS News has learned lawyers close to
Speaker 1: several Goop witnesses in Fulton County investigation were preparing to
Speaker 1: move to quash any possible indictments by the DA based
Speaker 1: on the public statements by the fore one of the
Speaker 1: special grand jury, per two people familiar with the discussion.
Speaker 1: So the lawyers for the people who could be accused
Speaker 1: here or indicted here are seizing on this to say
Speaker 1: this is all improper. We want this all you nullified
Speaker 1: because of her public statements. I don't know that that
Speaker 1: will work, but she's certainly not doing anyone any favors
Speaker 1: in terms of inspiring confidence in the process. Listen, I mean,
Speaker 1: the nature of juris is it's a group of your peers.
Speaker 1: It's regular citizens who have, in many times instances not
Speaker 1: done this before, who come to it with whatever their
Speaker 1: personality quirks and traits and biases happen to be. So
Speaker 1: that is not unusual. But even you know her talking about, Oh,
Speaker 1: I really wanted to swear in President Trump, and that's
Speaker 1: why I wanted to subpoena him. Like, that's not a
Speaker 1: good reason to subpoena someone because you personally when I
Speaker 1: have some face to face time with them. So it
Speaker 1: definitely gives if Trump is indicted out of this, it
Speaker 1: definitely gives him a lot to work with in terms
Speaker 1: of trying to make the argument to the public that
Speaker 1: this was all unfair, that this was, you know, kangaroo court.
Speaker 1: I think he's already used that word, that this was
Speaker 1: all ridiculous and unserious. And even Maggie Haberman is saying,
Speaker 1: put this up on the screen. She thinks that Trump
Speaker 1: indictment is probably likely based on these comments, but the
Speaker 1: Georgia jury blabbermouth is not helpful. So that's kind of
Speaker 1: where things stand. Yeah, I mean, Anderson Cooper actually did
Speaker 1: an entire reaction to this last night on CNN. So
Speaker 1: I was looking at all the establishment press, the smart
Speaker 1: ones like Maggie Haberman and Anderson coop A I geest
Speaker 1: smart in this context, are like, hey, this is probably
Speaker 1: not good and how can you look if Trump calls
Speaker 1: it a political witch hun all you gotta do is
Speaker 1: play that lady on Loop who was on national television
Speaker 1: divulging all of these details. Also, look, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a a lawyer, you know, I don't know all
Speaker 1: of the exact you know, maneuvering and all that. But
Speaker 1: clearly the costa news about filing and saying that it
Speaker 1: was politically motivated and some sort of challenge and even
Speaker 1: in a future appellate court seems very like he's made
Speaker 1: the prosecutor's job incredibly difficult, actually, because now this is
Speaker 1: going to be materially important in terms of the trial
Speaker 1: and bringing the charges in the first place. And then
Speaker 1: look in the realm that's the most important, the realm
Speaker 1: of public opinion, this is now effectively I think, been negated.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think that you can walk away
Speaker 1: from the fact that you have a fore woman who's
Speaker 1: clearly politically motivated on national television before a charge even
Speaker 1: drops talking about all of this, and then you know,
Speaker 1: indictment and all that. I've always looked at it as
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty as to how all of this would
Speaker 1: actually yeah proceed. So you know, public opinion, I think
Speaker 1: is and legitimacy is probably the most important one through
Speaker 1: all of this. I think they've given a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily get full motivated on her comments. I
Speaker 1: just got unseerious, and that damages the credibility of the
Speaker 1: process as well. I mean again, like I said, on
Speaker 1: any jury, you're going to have people who are come
Speaker 1: from a wide variety of views, perspectives, backgrounds, levels of competence,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But you would like to keep a sort
Speaker 1: of cloak of secrecy around so you can imagine that
Speaker 1: this is like a group of very serious, very credible
Speaker 1: people who aren't making decisions about, you know, something as
Speaker 1: serious dis obpoenion the president based on their own desire
Speaker 1: to be face to face with him and like have
Speaker 1: their little sixty second moment with him. Now, maybe that's
Speaker 1: a joke, Maybe she's just kidding. Maybe this is all
Speaker 1: you know what I just like her awkward desire to
Speaker 1: get in front of the cameras, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But you know, I keep coming back to what you
Speaker 1: said Saga originally with the whole classified document situation being
Speaker 1: revealed that Biden had classified documents too, Like this man
Speaker 1: is so lucky, He is so lucky. And I think
Speaker 1: that I increasingly feel confident in our early assessment and
Speaker 1: prediction that if he does get indicted, it should have
Speaker 1: a political impact. But I don't really think it's going
Speaker 1: to and not just not only with the Republican base,
Speaker 1: Like the longer this goes on, and the more distance
Speaker 1: there is from January sixth and from Stop the Steal,
Speaker 1: and the more he talks about Ukraine and social security
Speaker 1: instead of like obsessing over election conspiracies, which I'm shocked
Speaker 1: to see the somewhat intelligent maneuvers he's making in his
Speaker 1: campaign right now, you know, the more that some of
Speaker 1: this the bite is taken out of a potential indictment.
Speaker 1: So so I don't know, it's a crazy situation we're
Speaker 1: in where it's never been more clear that he is
Speaker 1: probably pretty likely to get indicted, and I just don't
Speaker 1: think it's going to be the blockbuster or shattering political
Speaker 1: world overturning moment that it once seemed possible to be
Speaker 1: at this point. They built it up for seven years.
Speaker 1: It never ends up happening. And now even if it does,
Speaker 1: it's going to be in a manner in a case
Speaker 1: where you know, even the details are very unclear. Maybe
Speaker 1: it might help the Democratic Party. I think it will
Speaker 1: only solidify Trump support within the GOP, just like after
Speaker 1: the mar A Lago Grade when everybody came behind him
Speaker 1: and ultimately, you know, that sense of persecution. You know,
Speaker 1: Trump is an identification of a lot of Republicans as
Speaker 1: a man who embodies like there want to like say
Speaker 1: screw you to the cultural left. Well that only makes
Speaker 1: it even better, you know, so from a fighting perspective,
Speaker 1: and then he would actually have to get convicted, which
Speaker 1: you know, look it is Georgia. It's still a fifty
Speaker 1: to fifty state last time I checked, you know, so
Speaker 1: Electro you know how how that would all play out too,
Speaker 1: Like it's not a foregone conclusion on any of this. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: all right, guy. Speaking of Trump, he traveled to East Palestine, Ohio.
Speaker 1: We have of course been covering the aftermath of that
Speaker 1: train derailment and their decision to do a quote unquote
Speaker 1: controlled release which was a giant fireball of toxic chemicals
Speaker 1: that has had lingering impacts on the community and that
Speaker 1: politicians have been very slow to react to. All right,
Speaker 1: so backdraw is, remember we tracked this very close. Lever
Speaker 1: News has done the best coverage of detailing the way
Speaker 1: that industry corruption has consistently stripped safety regulations, starting with
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, who sort of buckled under pressure and
Speaker 1: limited the scope of the new safety regulations that they
Speaker 1: were putting in place. Then Trump arguably did the most
Speaker 1: damage by completely rolling back even some of the safety
Speaker 1: recks that the Obama administration had put in place, in
Speaker 1: particular with regards to this breaking system you have. Biden
Speaker 1: administration maintains that status quo and of course joins with
Speaker 1: Republicans to crush the worker's movement that was trying to
Speaker 1: raise concerns safety concerns, specifically about potential incidents like this.
Speaker 1: So Trump's hands are not clean on this issue whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Quite the opposite, However, man knows how to spot a
Speaker 1: political opportunity, and while Joe Biden was in Ukraine, Trump
Speaker 1: traveled to East Palestine. Here's what he had to say.
Speaker 1: We're bringing thousands of bottle of water, Trump water, actually
Speaker 1: most of it. Some of it we had to go
Speaker 1: to a much lesser quality water. You want to get
Speaker 1: those Trump bottles, I think more than anybody else. But
Speaker 1: we're bringing a lot of what are thousands of bottles,
Speaker 1: and we have it in trucks. So we brought some
Speaker 1: on my plane today. And Norfolk Southern needs to fulfill
Speaker 1: its responsibilities and obligations. And I see that they're starting
Speaker 1: to come here now too, because they also were saying
Speaker 1: they're not coming. But it means that the affected community
Speaker 1: is beyond the borders of Palestine are going to be
Speaker 1: taken care of. And they've said so, and they've said
Speaker 1: it loud and clear, and I think they probably mean it.
Speaker 1: I sincerely hope that when your representatives and all of
Speaker 1: the politicians get here, including Biden, they get back from
Speaker 1: touring Ukraine, that he's got some money left over. Biden
Speaker 1: and FEMA said they would not send federal a to
Speaker 1: East Palestine under any circumstance, and so not going to
Speaker 1: send eight. I thought that was a strange statement because
Speaker 1: I've been working with FEMA for a long time, four years,
Speaker 1: and they were great with us with the tornadoes, the
Speaker 1: hurricanes and things like this. What's your specialty? Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: that's a nice, beautiful So I know this menu better
Speaker 1: than you do. I probably know it better than anybody here.
Speaker 1: We're going to take care of the we're going to
Speaker 1: take So that last piece there was him at McDonald's
Speaker 1: with those and those, which is like, I know the
Speaker 1: McDonald's menu better than we could actually, given how much
Speaker 1: the man loves McDonald's, you know. And there's a couple
Speaker 1: there's a lot to say about this actually. First of all,
Speaker 1: clearly his political instincts still on point. Democrats handed him
Speaker 1: an absolute lay up. There's such morons pete not going
Speaker 1: there yet. By not going there yet, I mean allowing
Speaker 1: opening up this space to make that talking, that talking
Speaker 1: point of hey, he's in Ukraine, we're here and I
Speaker 1: hope they still have some money for you guys when
Speaker 1: they get back. Brutal. And then the other pieces of
Speaker 1: media story, which is, you know, he wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to get away with going there and pretending like, oh,
Speaker 1: this has nothing to do with me, and I'm just
Speaker 1: here to try to help if the media had done
Speaker 1: their job of explaining that backstory of corruption and how
Speaker 1: his hands are very dirty in terms of caving to
Speaker 1: industry pressure. But since they don't do that, he can
Speaker 1: just ride in like a hero and distribute as Trump
Speaker 1: bottles of water. Look Trump is back. I mean I
Speaker 1: can feel it. I can sense it. I've novin't seen
Speaker 1: he's fun again in a way that McDonald's, you know.
Speaker 1: And look, I'm not saying this gives me pleasure to
Speaker 1: say this. My whole monologue is really about his own
Speaker 1: record with respect to Ford policy. All I'm saying is
Speaker 1: pure politically for him to waltz into a town clearly
Speaker 1: neglected force the media to cover it. It's just like
Speaker 1: exactly what he did with Flint in twenty sixteen. You
Speaker 1: remember that Trump and he actually won Flint. If we'll recall,
Speaker 1: there's that good documentary about the Flint police department and
Speaker 1: how they also so much supported him in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and it caused like a big political stir at the time.
Speaker 1: And then the deadliest talking point of all he's in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I'm over here. I hope he has some money that
Speaker 1: is left over for you. And you know, the moment. Actually,
Speaker 1: while the ptin of Biden speech was happening. I texted
Speaker 1: them while I was abroad, and I was like, hey, immediately,
Speaker 1: what popped in my head? Keeve before East Palestine and
Speaker 1: then Secretary of budhaj Edge is visiting today after Donald Trump?
Speaker 1: What is the guy doing? I remain you know, It's like,
Speaker 1: how can you possibly have not immediately gotten on a plane?
Speaker 1: You know? Now the President Biden has yet to put
Speaker 1: out any full like comments or anything on East Palestine.
Speaker 1: There's no announced visit. Where is Kamala Harr I mean
Speaker 1: sends somebody like at the very least Buddha Jedge was
Speaker 1: supposed to mean. He should have been there a week ago,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, maybe nine ten days ago.
Speaker 1: He should have been one of the very first people
Speaker 1: on the ground with a FEMA director. She should have
Speaker 1: had the Ohio governor and all those people right next
Speaker 1: one and be like I'm taking charge. I'm not leaving
Speaker 1: East Palestine until this is all done. Where is he? Oh?
Speaker 1: I know where he is. He's here in Washington taking
Speaker 1: personal time. We'll tell you a little yeah, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you about later. He got mad at a reporter for
Speaker 1: actually asking him when he was going to visit East Palestine. Well,
Speaker 1: and here's here's another piece, is the Republican governor of
Speaker 1: the state, Mike DeWine, does not come out looking good
Speaker 1: in any of this either. He admitted before that like
Speaker 1: the White House had called him and he just didn't
Speaker 1: call them back to ask for aid for the area.
Speaker 1: He also, you know, he was asked a question. We've
Speaker 1: been tracking the water test results that were used to
Speaker 1: give the all cleared residents to say it's all good,
Speaker 1: you can drink the water, no problem here, and it
Speaker 1: has increasingly become clear that the EPA relied predominantly on
Speaker 1: a contractor that was paid for by Norfolk Southern themselves,
Speaker 1: So the polluters paid for these water tests that the
Speaker 1: Ohio EPA was predominantly relying on. Dwine got asked a
Speaker 1: question by this I believe it was by our friend
Speaker 1: Rich McHugh, News Nation Now investigative reporter who we've known
Speaker 1: for quite a while, fantastic journalists who's been there on
Speaker 1: the ground, who we had on the show earlier in
Speaker 1: the week. In any case, DeWine reveals he really doesn't
Speaker 1: have a clue what's going on. Hands it off to
Speaker 1: the Ohio EPA director, who basically confirms the outlines of
Speaker 1: that storylist way to listen to that. As the EPA
Speaker 1: tested the water independently, Yes, we're testing it independently. Was
Speaker 1: it initially tested in conjunction? I ask my director? The
Speaker 1: Norfolk Southern contractor did a com They did their own
Speaker 1: testing that same sample at the same time. It's collected
Speaker 1: by the county and sent to a separate lab. The
Speaker 1: Ohio EPA confirming to News Nation it was done in
Speaker 1: conjunction at first, but will now begin its own independent
Speaker 1: testing starting today and keep boddah judge and bouncing. He
Speaker 1: will finally come here to the crash site, responding to
Speaker 1: criticism he did not visit sooner. To be clear, our
Speaker 1: department was on the ground within hours. I could have
Speaker 1: spoken out sooner, and I'm making sure that we are
Speaker 1: focused on the actions that are going to make a difference.
Speaker 1: So de Wine there's a oh, yeah, we're doing my
Speaker 1: own independent testing, and he's like, well, I don't really know.
Speaker 1: Let me get to the EPA director who's like, well,
Speaker 1: not actually, now we're starting to do our own independent
Speaker 1: testing after they've already told people it's all safe and fine,
Speaker 1: it's a desil Biden administration and the Republican governor here
Speaker 1: have left the greatest political opening of all time, and
Speaker 1: with buddhaj Edge at this point, I don't know how
Speaker 1: in the hell that this guy continues to have a
Speaker 1: job and Biden himself, I mean, you know, Biden, you
Speaker 1: could always say his political instincts were at least better
Speaker 1: than a lot of the people in the media, right,
Speaker 1: a lot of the elites in the party. He has
Speaker 1: lost it, you know, clearly, some of that the idea
Speaker 1: of visiting a foreign country while you're dispensing hundreds of
Speaker 1: billions of dollars to them and literally giving the greatest
Speaker 1: talking point of all time that he cares about another
Speaker 1: country and another country's borders more than he cares about
Speaker 1: your own. That is all you're going to hear from
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. And why shouldn't you, because now it's
Speaker 1: creating the political pressure on the Biden administration where they
Speaker 1: feel on the backfoot. And Chrystal clearly the Democrats they
Speaker 1: know they screwed up. Now at this point, the National
Speaker 1: Democratic Party is silent, but they're looking at this and
Speaker 1: it is a total twenty sixteen replay. I think, I
Speaker 1: really think Trump, you know, tweeted this earlier today. Trump's
Speaker 1: power levels are higher than I've seen him in years.
Speaker 1: He hasn't been talking about to stop the steal on Twitter.
Speaker 1: He's honestly pretty funny or truth. Sorry, meatball Ron is fantastic.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, it's just the best. One of the best
Speaker 1: nicknames I've heard in a lot. Says that's fake Newscimer.
Speaker 1: He would never call me. He's going to say, you're right,
Speaker 1: I've never called me ball meetball Ron, meatball Ron. Just
Speaker 1: devastating him publicly looking at Mickey Haley and just brushing
Speaker 1: her aside, just you know, almost smirking at her candidacy.
Speaker 1: And then the political genius of just swaltzing into East
Speaker 1: Palestine while Biden is in Ohio the Trump water and
Speaker 1: making the joke about all of that. That is vintage
Speaker 1: two thousand. He seems more unshackled right now than ever. Now. Look,
Speaker 1: Trump is always his own worst enemy. He hasn't been
Speaker 1: talking about stop the steel all that much lately. If
Speaker 1: he does get into guided in Georgia, clearly you know
Speaker 1: that's going to come back to the fourth. So he's
Speaker 1: one of those where he has immense political talent and
Speaker 1: immense political baggage. Right now you're seeing the talent aspect,
Speaker 1: I think, and as look, if he continues, it's only
Speaker 1: going to work out even Yeah, and no talk about
Speaker 1: abortion from him, No, not one word about it. He's
Speaker 1: not a stupid man. I always say that. The last
Speaker 1: thing I want to point out, which I raised yesterday,
Speaker 1: go and put this up on the screen. I think
Speaker 1: we had covered before how Libby Montana has Medicare for
Speaker 1: All because of this provision that got put into Obamacare,
Speaker 1: where if you have an area that's deemed a public
Speaker 1: health disaster and that town had been poisoned basically because
Speaker 1: of the result of mining operation there, but you can,
Speaker 1: if you're deemed public health disaster, you can actually invoke
Speaker 1: this provision of Obamacare to get Medicare for life. Now, listen,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, everybody deserves Medicare for all, but at
Speaker 1: the very least, these residents who we know were exposed
Speaker 1: to a known carcinogen deserve to have health care coverage
Speaker 1: for themselves and for their children for life, because after
Speaker 1: the TV cameras go away, and after the immediate symptoms
Speaker 1: and the smell of chemical contaminants. After that all fades,
Speaker 1: it's years down the road when we will really know
Speaker 1: the true health impacts of what ultimately happened here. And
Speaker 1: to lend myself some credibility, David Dayan sort of second
Speaker 1: the idea because he's the one who flagged for me
Speaker 1: originally back previously that Libby Montana had this ability and
Speaker 1: that this was something that the Biden administration could potentially use,
Speaker 1: and he said he was warming to the idea. It
Speaker 1: requires a Public Health Emergency Declaration. EPA has already said
Speaker 1: to Norfolk Southern that the situation fits under a circle.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is. HHS would then have
Speaker 1: to create a specific pilot program for East Palestine based
Speaker 1: on potential exposure. So and he goes on to add
Speaker 1: five thousand new people on the MEDICA roles as a
Speaker 1: rounding error. Government would have to admit the potential for
Speaker 1: harm from chemical exposure, though, which would seem to be
Speaker 1: the main hurdle, as nobody really wants to say that
Speaker 1: right now. So that's the barrier is they don't want
Speaker 1: to admit that there was potentially damaging, long term chemical
Speaker 1: exposure here that could make them eligible for this provision
Speaker 1: and when they admit it, they have to admit their
Speaker 1: own role in not going and trying to fix it
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. So these people, look, they've been
Speaker 1: screwed from day one. We're not going to let this
Speaker 1: go and we can't. It's unfortunate that the Biden administration
Speaker 1: really a media leftist open for Republicans and for independent journalism.
Speaker 1: But we're going to take it because you know, you
Speaker 1: can't just forget these people. Yeah, it's just really not right.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right. And to that point, we have been
Speaker 1: partnering with Status KU on the ground. They have a
Speaker 1: journalist there who has been talking to residents over days,
Speaker 1: if not weeks at this point, talking to them about
Speaker 1: their symptoms and doing some digging, in particular into those
Speaker 1: water tests. So let's get right to it. Louis de
Speaker 1: Angelus of Status qu joins us now, Grace c. Lewis,
Speaker 1: just man, thanks for having me. So I understand you
Speaker 1: have some new reporting about the water tests which were conducted,
Speaker 1: in which we're used as the basis for telling residents
Speaker 1: it's all good. You can drink the water, there's going
Speaker 1: to be no problems. Tell us what you've learned yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely so in you know, reporting from several other folks
Speaker 1: as well up until this point. You know, I actually
Speaker 1: ran into the governor the other day, asked him a
Speaker 1: couple of tough questions that he was not necessarily excited
Speaker 1: to have asked, and did his best to dodge them.
Speaker 1: And basically the tests that have been done initially up
Speaker 1: until basically the last forty eight hours were all from
Speaker 1: contractors hired by either Norfolk Southern or contractors hired by
Speaker 1: the EPA. These two contractors are companies called Tetra Tech
Speaker 1: and CTEH. Both of these companies have histories of mishandling
Speaker 1: results and information they've you know, some of in some
Speaker 1: cases falsifying test results. This you know, these companies were
Speaker 1: being used. One of them was during the deep Water
Speaker 1: Horizon incident. I don't know if you remember back in
Speaker 1: twenty ten. The New York Times reported on that one
Speaker 1: and the other one. Let me pull it up here
Speaker 1: just because I want to make sure I have it
Speaker 1: all accurate for you all. The other incident as well
Speaker 1: was from the let's see, the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. So both of these companies are giving
Speaker 1: residents more reason to question the results and the answers
Speaker 1: that their government officials are giving them or frankly, you
Speaker 1: know more realistically not giving them. So with that information,
Speaker 1: you know up until forty eight hours ago, again, these
Speaker 1: tests are being provided by these two companies, one of
Speaker 1: them being hired directly by the railroad, which has no
Speaker 1: incentive here to necessarily put out the accurate information. Right,
Speaker 1: these guys are trying to cover their butts in a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff. And it gets a little bit
Speaker 1: worse because as we looked into this, I've been on
Speaker 1: the ground talking with residents since over the last weekend,
Speaker 1: establishing trusts with these folks and actually giving them the
Speaker 1: time of day to talk to them and build trust.
Speaker 1: And the children of one of the parents that I've
Speaker 1: established a good relationship with asked if he could do
Speaker 1: an interview. Some of his friends wanted to as well.
Speaker 1: We got permission to do this interview with the children,
Speaker 1: and one of the kids mentioned that the water fountains
Speaker 1: in their school, so not the part that you can
Speaker 1: go down and get a sip from, but the part
Speaker 1: that you can fill up your water bottle in is
Speaker 1: actually open to use inside of their school, and I mean,
Speaker 1: my heart just dropped when I heard that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got little nieces. You know. The kids did say
Speaker 1: there is bottled water in school, But again, these are children.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the fact that they can go fill
Speaker 1: up their water bottle in the school because officials are
Speaker 1: telling them that the water is fine when we're relying
Speaker 1: on again predominantly tests that are being contracted out by
Speaker 1: the railroad. It's unconscionable to me to hear that happen,
Speaker 1: and it you know, it's it's a it's a tough
Speaker 1: it's a tough story. And I mean, these folks are
Speaker 1: going through so much here. It's it's tough to talk about.
Speaker 1: These conversations that I'm having with residents are are hard
Speaker 1: ones to have. These folks are being put in absolutely
Speaker 1: impossible positions. Lewis the piece about these contractors, it's the
Speaker 1: first time learning about it. Can you give us a
Speaker 1: little bit more detail about their involvement that was you know,
Speaker 1: revealed to be fraudulent in the past, falsifying records. What
Speaker 1: was uncovered there, just so we know some of the specifics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I know more of a deepwater horizon incident. And
Speaker 1: in the article from the New York Times. Essentially they
Speaker 1: do a good job with this. I encourage folks to
Speaker 1: find it. We can get you all the link to
Speaker 1: post in the description or something like that. But in
Speaker 1: that incident, the New York Times essentially found that the
Speaker 1: Deepwater Horizon incident, the company had every incentive to essentially
Speaker 1: make these folks be feeling okay and getting them back
Speaker 1: to work and all this sort of thing. So it's
Speaker 1: really the incentives that were being placed. We're obviously incorrect
Speaker 1: in all of these instances. There should be independent testing
Speaker 1: being done. And again, if you want residents here in
Speaker 1: East Palestine or in any other incidents, you know, across
Speaker 1: the country where this to happen. Again, let's make sure
Speaker 1: that we're using a company that does not have a
Speaker 1: history of any of this kind of fraudulent information. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: can you expand then in the context of the general
Speaker 1: kind of corporate influence and cover up that's been going
Speaker 1: on here that you've been able to witness on the ground,
Speaker 1: because it just seems like the latest in a series
Speaker 1: of things that's been happening. No, it is, and you know,
Speaker 1: everything from initially, you know, the railroad varying contaminants underneath
Speaker 1: the railroad tracks, right. Residents have been very unhappy about that,
Speaker 1: and essentially, even even with the evacuations, right, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of speculation. Again, I can't confirm any of this necessarily,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of speculation that the reason the
Speaker 1: town was deemed safe again was because the railroad is
Speaker 1: not able to run trains through the town while there's
Speaker 1: still an evacuation notice ordered. If no one's allowed back
Speaker 1: into town, why you know, railroad conductors that sort of
Speaker 1: thing aren't going to be able to be going through
Speaker 1: this area because it's unsafe. So there's added pressure to
Speaker 1: get folks back into town. Tell them everything is fine,
Speaker 1: everything is safe, so that they can get the railroad
Speaker 1: moving again. And I can tell you after being here
Speaker 1: for several days, that railroad is busy. I mean, in
Speaker 1: some times a day, it's every ten minutes a train
Speaker 1: going by. Oftentimes right now, the trains are actually being
Speaker 1: double stacked the shipping container ones. Residents tell me that
Speaker 1: that was not the case beforehand, but it's just mostly
Speaker 1: single stacked. They're trying to catch up on the railroad
Speaker 1: being closed from before with these double stack trains, which
Speaker 1: I don't need to tell you this. The double stack
Speaker 1: trains are going to be heavier than singles, tracked one
Speaker 1: tracked ones. It's it's uncomfortable again, Lewis. We actually have
Speaker 1: you interviewed residents who voiced exactly the fear and suspicion
Speaker 1: you were laying out that basically the all clear call
Speaker 1: was rushed in order to get back to business as usual. Guys,
Speaker 1: this is the second stot that we have. I believe
Speaker 1: it's labeled to see five Control room. Let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and take a listen to that. They had that thing
Speaker 1: cleaned up and the train running through within forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: They laid those tracks right over top of that, and
Speaker 1: there is no way that they hauled any of it out.
Speaker 1: They laid it right over top. And you know the
Speaker 1: fire department when when this initially happened, it's a fire,
Speaker 1: they're trying to put it out. There's brain what where'd
Speaker 1: that water go? You know, it's right in the ground,
Speaker 1: in the soil. And they laid those were tracks people.
Speaker 1: And the thing is they weren't allowed to run the
Speaker 1: train through an evacuated area. So as soon as them
Speaker 1: train tracks were done, the evacuations lifted people that came
Speaker 1: home the night day. We didn't come up to the
Speaker 1: next morning, but there were people that came home that night.
Speaker 1: They had videos they had to wait on the train
Speaker 1: because the train was already up and running before they
Speaker 1: could get back in their houses. Now, is that a
Speaker 1: coincidence that they weren't allowed to run through an evacuated
Speaker 1: area and all of a sudden, the train's ready to
Speaker 1: go and the evacuate evac you know, the evacuation was lifted.
Speaker 1: You know, I think not so. Residents very fearful that
Speaker 1: their health and safety was put at risk in order
Speaker 1: to make sure that the rail companies could get back
Speaker 1: to operating a maximum capacity and get back to making
Speaker 1: the profit margins they're used to. Absolutely, and I mean again,
Speaker 1: Stella and Darren there. I talked to them for forty
Speaker 1: five minutes. They've got foster children, young kids, some of
Speaker 1: them with pre existing conditions. And you know that house
Speaker 1: that we were interviewing them in there, that's been their
Speaker 1: family for one hundred years. This is you know, they're like,
Speaker 1: what are we going to pass on to our kids?
Speaker 1: Our house is worth nothing. Now that's a major concern
Speaker 1: from a lot of folks in town. Is you know,
Speaker 1: there's folks who are looking to retire, they want to
Speaker 1: sell their house. What are they going to do now?
Speaker 1: Norfolk Southern's not talking about buying people's houses at the
Speaker 1: value that they were beforehand, and I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they're not looking into doing that at any point.
Speaker 1: But again, even for renters, I mean I mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: on in this parents are being put in an absolutely
Speaker 1: impossible situation here, right, I'm talking to people with I'll
Speaker 1: give you some of the symptoms that we're hearing. And
Speaker 1: this isn't just from like one or two people. I'd
Speaker 1: say roughly half of the people I'm talking to are
Speaker 1: dealing with some of these symptoms here. So we've got rashes,
Speaker 1: bloody noses, the bloody noses, especially with kids like every
Speaker 1: night in some cases right, sore throats, dry and stinging eyes, vomiting,
Speaker 1: breathing problems, diarrhea, and again, some of this stuff is
Speaker 1: hard to necessarily show on camp, but I can tell
Speaker 1: you from being invited into many of these people's homes,
Speaker 1: going into some of the businesses here, these people are
Speaker 1: not bsing you into trying to believe this sort of
Speaker 1: thing it's frustrating to see, you know, folks online saying, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, folks are looking for a handout. These people
Speaker 1: are in the most impossible situation ever. You walk into
Speaker 1: some of these places and you can feel it in
Speaker 1: your eyes, you can smell it's it's an absolute shame
Speaker 1: that this is going on. And as a result of this,
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more about some of the
Speaker 1: you know, corruption, gaslighting, whatever you want to call it
Speaker 1: going on here, the State of Ohio set up a
Speaker 1: clinic in the town for folks to go to. I
Speaker 1: asked Governor DeWine. I was like, you know, I talked
Speaker 1: to all of these people on this street last night.
Speaker 1: We ran into them on the street because the local
Speaker 1: resident tipped me off that he was there. I was like,
Speaker 1: I talked to all these folks on this street. They're
Speaker 1: experiencing all of these symptoms that I just listed off
Speaker 1: for you. Where should they go? He goes, they should
Speaker 1: go to the clinic that the State of Ohio is
Speaker 1: set up. So we went to the Ohio State you know,
Speaker 1: the clinic that they set up in town. And this
Speaker 1: clinic isn't even providing actual medical services here right. The
Speaker 1: clinic is essentially providing folks to talk to. Right, so
Speaker 1: you go, you get you you you know, can can
Speaker 1: talk to an expert, I guess, and then they'll refer
Speaker 1: you to go to your doctor. Hopefully you've got health insurance.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you have a plan that doesn't have a high
Speaker 1: deductible or else you're on the hook or emergency room bills.
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable. And that's one more point on this, if
Speaker 1: I can make it. A lot of the other you know,
Speaker 1: local journalist in town, and obviously there's exceptions to the rule,
Speaker 1: and even some of the national media. We were there
Speaker 1: reporting from in front of the medical center. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they're out there essentially reading the press release saying this
Speaker 1: medical clinic is now open. Members of the public should
Speaker 1: come here for for you know, services and whatnot. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: I've got residents texting me saying this is ridiculous. This
Speaker 1: is no real services here. There's no real services. And fortunately,
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to actually be here to do
Speaker 1: it because nobody you know, again, there is exceptions to
Speaker 1: the rule, no doubt about it. But you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not an expert journalist. I don't have a journalism degree, right,
Speaker 1: but I feel like I'm out here asking the questions
Speaker 1: that a lot of these other folks aren't, which is
Speaker 1: a shame that I have to be in that position
Speaker 1: to try to do it well. We find ourselves in
Speaker 1: that position sometime. We're very happy to help support your
Speaker 1: work down there. So yeah, we appreciate you being there
Speaker 1: and let us know continue if you ever need any
Speaker 1: more resources or anything. Yeah, thanks, lewis great to have you.
Speaker 1: If we're able to as well, folks, we're going to
Speaker 1: be posting a lot of content on status QUP. If
Speaker 1: you're not a Status qu subscriber already, that would be
Speaker 1: fantastic if you can come follow some of our work there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've been done. That's from the beginning. Thanks, guys, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: At the same time, there's some rumblings here in Washington,
Speaker 1: very interesting rumblings. I'm not sure quite yet how to
Speaker 1: take it serious. Let's put it up there on the
Speaker 1: screen from Politico headline Biden may not run. Top Dems
Speaker 1: are quietly preparing for it. The president no longer seems
Speaker 1: absolutely certain to go for a second term, leaving the
Speaker 1: party's top aids and potential candidates unsure. About twenty four
Speaker 1: and very quietly mulling whatever a plan be would look like.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not quite yet sure what to make of
Speaker 1: this crystal, because previously the reporting was he is ironclad,
Speaker 1: it's totally good to go. The closest advisors President Biden,
Speaker 1: all the people the president President seeks, they break the schedule,
Speaker 1: brig the DNC primary South Carolina and all of that,
Speaker 1: all of the launch. It was supposed to happen sometime
Speaker 1: in April, but now the definitive date is moving. Nobody's
Speaker 1: quite yet said when the hard deadline or the formal
Speaker 1: process were actually arriving at the launch date. Decision will
Speaker 1: be the final call was pushed aside. They continue to
Speaker 1: blame Kiev or the holiday weekend trip more recently that
Speaker 1: he had taken, and he seems to be dithering as
Speaker 1: to what exactly he wants to do. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of questions as to why exactly that is. We
Speaker 1: know that Joe Biden is one of the people that
Speaker 1: he takes most seriously and her advice. It could be
Speaker 1: a concern over his age. We've talked about before. It
Speaker 1: be eighty six years old. He may not admit in
Speaker 1: public that his age is a problem, But clearly everybody
Speaker 1: else in the world is like, I can't even believe
Speaker 1: that anyone that old would ever seek reelection, let alone
Speaker 1: you know, current continue to be in the Oval office.
Speaker 1: But actually, what really struck home for me was a
Speaker 1: part of the piece where they say Biden is famously indecisive,
Speaker 1: a habit exacerbated by decades in the Senate, and it
Speaker 1: actually hearkens back to the Hillary time. Well, remember in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, he was a serious possible candidate for president.
Speaker 1: He almost came close, had some advisors and people who
Speaker 1: were assembled behind him and couldn't say yes no. Obama
Speaker 1: famously kind of put the squeeze on him Hillary and
Speaker 1: the DNC says no, no no, no, it's all Hillary's turn.
Speaker 1: He basically just eventually the last minute, after Hillary's already announced,
Speaker 1: comes to the decisions Okay, I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1: Step Aside continues to say it's one of the biggest
Speaker 1: regrets of his life in public. But he's now and
Speaker 1: now he's kind of displaying that same attitude. My personal
Speaker 1: opinion is I think he eventually will run, but having
Speaker 1: the just because they have no other option, you know,
Speaker 1: as long as he's he could still speak like, not
Speaker 1: even semi coherently, like they're still going to do it
Speaker 1: just because there's too much at stake here. But this
Speaker 1: does demonstrate so I'm one of the biggest personal problems.
Speaker 1: He's always had, the deliberation, the indecisiveness, and then he
Speaker 1: gets snappy whenever people try and actually point it out
Speaker 1: to him. He's a micro manager who can't make a decision. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a disastrous combination of traits for someone in
Speaker 1: terms of being in a like management position. So you know,
Speaker 1: he's got all kinds of staffers who are ready to
Speaker 1: go for a presidential campaign. But you know, if he's
Speaker 1: not even making the first decision of Okay, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: doing it, well, then think of how they're paralyzed in
Speaker 1: terms of, Okay, where do we do the headquarters, what
Speaker 1: does our launch look like, what themes are we running?
Speaker 1: Are we leaning into, Let's get some polling going, let's
Speaker 1: think about the Republican field. All of those sort of
Speaker 1: down the road decisions get paralyzed by an inability to
Speaker 1: make that very first decision. Now, do I think that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is ultimately going to run again? Yes, I
Speaker 1: always have I agree with you, Sager. The calculus remains
Speaker 1: the same. You know, they have a Kamala Harris problem.
Speaker 1: Maybe if he felt like he could easily hand the
Speaker 1: baton to somebody else, I don't know that would be
Speaker 1: Pete at this point, but to somebody else that he
Speaker 1: felt confident about, then maybe it would be different. But
Speaker 1: because it would be so hard to get around Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: first black woman vice president, I think he ends up
Speaker 1: getting pushed back into this again. And the other piece
Speaker 1: is the longer that he waits if he does decide,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm just too old. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: do it. Well, you have now really put all of
Speaker 1: the other contenders on the back foot, who haven't had
Speaker 1: time to fundraise and make their moves, etc. And so
Speaker 1: you really have privileged Kamala Harris in this process. I mean,
Speaker 1: right now, if you look at the polls, she's the
Speaker 1: person who is in the lead, just sort of by default.
Speaker 1: So the longer you wait, the more you make Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris inevitable. And I think Biden and everybody else in
Speaker 1: DC is at least intelligent to note enough to know
Speaker 1: that that could be a complete disaster. So I do
Speaker 1: think ultimately this is just him being his classic decisive self.
Speaker 1: He'll probably ultimately come around to running again. But it's
Speaker 1: interesting that this sort of chatter is going on right now.
Speaker 1: Right So, in terms of the contenders, everybody wants to know.
Speaker 1: So here's the list that Politico has put together. You've
Speaker 1: got Pritzker, the governor of Ohio. I think he comes
Speaker 1: from a billionaire family or sorry Illinois, but comes from
Speaker 1: a billionaire family that can't hurt in terms of putting
Speaker 1: together an instant campaign room. What was it recently that
Speaker 1: he did where he was having some macho moments where
Speaker 1: the press was liking Pritzker. Printzker captured like leftist imagination
Speaker 1: for a moment. First of all, everybody loves a big boy,
Speaker 1: so there's that. That's true. Number two, it was just
Speaker 1: like almost on gun control, he actually did a few
Speaker 1: things as governor that he promised he was going to do,
Speaker 1: and people were like amazed by that. Okay, there was
Speaker 1: something too of like he cut the gasoline tax when
Speaker 1: energy prices were really sky high, and then he had
Speaker 1: all the forced all the convenience stores to put on
Speaker 1: the sign like this is because of Prince Kerst I
Speaker 1: would do it too smart. Yeah, good. I think it
Speaker 1: lifted the middle of a wage, some things like that.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's JB. Pritzker. Okay, so we got Pritzker.
Speaker 1: That's one person. Apparently, Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey,
Speaker 1: is taking a look. Amy Klobachar plans to seek reelection
Speaker 1: to her Senate seat. Crystal's famous. I'm taking a hard
Speaker 1: look at Amy Klobuchar. I guess the hard look continues
Speaker 1: for people in the media. Elizabeth Warren apparently is another list,
Speaker 1: although she's getting up there in age herself. Bernie, they
Speaker 1: put the list ro Kana, so somebody who's been here
Speaker 1: on the show but keeping his options open obviously, So
Speaker 1: that's a list that they've put together. I think it's
Speaker 1: remarkable that Buddha, Judge Kamla were our. I guess those
Speaker 1: are just so obvious that they're saying that there are
Speaker 1: other people better. Yeah. So, anyway, we don't know exactly,
Speaker 1: but at the very least these pieces are good because
Speaker 1: they either cause anger or silence from the White House,
Speaker 1: so inevitably they will be asked about it, they will
Speaker 1: be asked for comment, and then their own way that
Speaker 1: they handle it and what it will spur in the future.
Speaker 1: If it continues to see in action, then there's still
Speaker 1: a possibility. If it's spurs action or gets Biden moving,
Speaker 1: then it'll go in the different direction. But regardless, it
Speaker 1: is important. It's one of the widely read places here
Speaker 1: in Washington where everybody keeps an eye on, and we
Speaker 1: thought it was absolutely worth covering. Yeah. Meanwhile, the Republican
Speaker 1: side is, I don't know, it's kind of shaping up
Speaker 1: a little bit. We've got some some polling here showing
Speaker 1: Trump taking a bit more of a lead in this race. Well,
Speaker 1: he's certainly doing much better than I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people are willing to admit. And let's go and
Speaker 1: put this up there. So January second, the Republican poll
Speaker 1: from Morning Console had Trump at forty five percent, up
Speaker 1: by eleven points on Ron DeSantis who had thirty four percent,
Speaker 1: Mike Pence at eight, Nikki Haley at three. February nineteenth.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind this is after the Haley announcement. Trump
Speaker 1: is now up to fifty percent. He's actually gained on
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis. Much of that is directly from DeSantis's support
Speaker 1: at thirty percent, Mike Pence at six, Nicki Haley at six,
Speaker 1: what can you kind of surmise from that? Haley by
Speaker 1: simply announcing, was able to get three percent of the
Speaker 1: anti Trump vote, but by creating the contrast without DeSantis
Speaker 1: and Mike Pence technically in the race, Trump's own support
Speaker 1: of people who are contrasting him with potential others has
Speaker 1: actually gone up to the outright fifty. Now, listen, a
Speaker 1: lot can change, of course, of course, right, and we
Speaker 1: have not yet seen any actual attack on Trump. But hey,
Speaker 1: maybe that's a problem when you're running against him. Nikki
Speaker 1: Haley continues with they're idiotic. I'm not kicking sideways, I'm
Speaker 1: kicking forth. First of all, what does it mean? Second?
Speaker 1: Why are we kicking? We're continuing to kick national tell
Speaker 1: I Heals and all that. But it's not just her,
Speaker 1: it's all of the other potential contenders. Mike Pence has
Speaker 1: not said a damn word about Donald Trump. Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: hasn't said it. Don Tim Scott, who apparently wants to
Speaker 1: throw his hat in the ring too, well, he was
Speaker 1: on TV just last night. What is Sean Hannity ask him?
Speaker 1: He said, well, okay, what makes you different from Trump
Speaker 1: in any way? He's basically like nothing. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 1: What are the differences in terms of of policy positions that,
Speaker 1: for example, you may have with President Trump. Probably not
Speaker 1: very many at all. I am so thankful that we
Speaker 1: have President Trump in office. Frankly, the policies that we
Speaker 1: were able to pass from twenty seventeen to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: were monumental, all right, So I happen to think that
Speaker 1: the policy things were monumental, we were better off for Trump.
Speaker 1: So if you're better off for Trump being president, and
Speaker 1: why shouldn't you be president again? This is the problem
Speaker 1: with all of these people. They're not willing to take
Speaker 1: any real shots, even in terms of the formative message.
Speaker 1: You know, I have thought that DeSantis could make a
Speaker 1: very powerful general election argument as to why we should
Speaker 1: move away from Trump. A lot of people don't like Trump.
Speaker 1: Maybe two thirds of the country. E's either ambivalent thinks
Speaker 1: negatively him. Half of those ambivalent people willing to hold
Speaker 1: their nose and vote for him, but they're not technically excited.
Speaker 1: It's really only the MAGA people that are. For those people,
Speaker 1: that would be a critical way, but you got to
Speaker 1: win the primary, and to win the primary, you have
Speaker 1: to care, you have to speak to the issues that
Speaker 1: they really care about. For a lot of the Republican
Speaker 1: base right now, it is very clear it's culture war.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. On culture war, how do you
Speaker 1: outflank Donald Trump on that he invented the model. You're
Speaker 1: not going to culture harder than Donald Trump. He's the
Speaker 1: He's the king of own the troll king from day
Speaker 1: one and always kind of has been then. And he'll also,
Speaker 1: by the way, he'll always up the ante, right. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody with Obama they were like willing to play footsie
Speaker 1: with else. He's like he wasn't born here at all,
Speaker 1: you know, He's like he knew it was bs. He
Speaker 1: just didn't care because and I remember there's private reporting
Speaker 1: where Romney apparently was like, hey, man, like maybe don't
Speaker 1: say any of this, and Trump was like, you have
Speaker 1: no idea how much it gets the crowd going. He's
Speaker 1: a performer, like he knows exactly what he's doing and
Speaker 1: he doesn't care about what the red lines are in yeah,
Speaker 1: always every single time. So first of all, you can't
Speaker 1: do that, yeah, And second, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: in terms of the Republican base right now on economics,
Speaker 1: the Republican Party nationally has never been more out of
Speaker 1: step with them and their desire to preserve social security
Speaker 1: and medical Sure. They might buy that Biden spending or
Speaker 1: whatever has led to inflation and generally blame him for that,
Speaker 1: but they still want their entitlements and they're really loving
Speaker 1: the rays that they got on social security. So to
Speaker 1: put that contrast, I think with the two of them, fundamentally,
Speaker 1: I'm watching all these would be Republican candidates. They're either
Speaker 1: completely behind him on the issues that matter the most,
Speaker 1: or in the case of Nikki Haley, she's trying to
Speaker 1: basically be like a liberal left Democrat on Ukraine policy,
Speaker 1: saying no actually to send even more weapons her and
Speaker 1: people like Mike Pompeio. So he's got it, he's got
Speaker 1: it dialed in, I think to where things are right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, the two issues he's really leaning into
Speaker 1: are Ukraine, yeah, and social security. And he's smart, it's
Speaker 1: very intelligent. And on social security. On Ukraine, you're going
Speaker 1: to get a mix of answers. DeSantis is trying to
Speaker 1: like move into a position to at least signal like
Speaker 1: he's a Ukraine skeptic, although again. Like the thing Trump
Speaker 1: will do is he'll just again come out and say
Speaker 1: it like no tanks, and I will solve this on
Speaker 1: day one. It's so easy to do, right, whereas others
Speaker 1: a little craft, little talking points and try to play
Speaker 1: to the bass. But he just comes out and says it.
Speaker 1: And then on Social Security, every one of these people,
Speaker 1: including Nicky Haley and Mike Pence, have already Mike Pence
Speaker 1: wants to privatize Social Security. Okay, do good luck with that.
Speaker 1: Nicki Haley is already out there saying like, oh, we
Speaker 1: got to put him on the table, and which means cuts.
Speaker 1: And then I don't know how Ronda Santis is going
Speaker 1: to handle it, but he has a lot of comments
Speaker 1: in his past backing up Paul Ryan's Medicare cuts, saying
Speaker 1: we need to do the same thing with Social Security,
Speaker 1: saying we need to look to increase the eligibility age,
Speaker 1: which of course means cuts as well. So he now
Speaker 1: either has to flip flop on those comments, which obviously
Speaker 1: Trump is not going to let him get away with
Speaker 1: and look kind of weak, or he has to stand
Speaker 1: by them and be dramatically at odds with the rest
Speaker 1: of the Republican base, So you know, he is doing
Speaker 1: an effective job of grabbing the attention, of shaping the
Speaker 1: battlefield as he ultimately wants it, and forcing everyone else
Speaker 1: to respond. And if you can't even find a single
Speaker 1: person in the Republican Party who's going to tell you
Speaker 1: why we should, why you should move on Trump, what
Speaker 1: issues they're different on, I don't know what to tell you,
Speaker 1: because that's not the way politics works. If this guy
Speaker 1: was so great while he was in office, then you
Speaker 1: should just reelect him again, because I mean, and you know,
Speaker 1: with Mike Pence, he actually does have some policy differences
Speaker 1: on Ukraine and on abortion in particular, and on social
Speaker 1: securities I just mentioned. Now, do I think those are
Speaker 1: winning positions for him? Not particularly, although on abortion with
Speaker 1: the Republican base he might be able to do something there,
Speaker 1: But he doesn't even want to talk about those actual, real,
Speaker 1: measurable policy differences that he has. So it's just, honestly,
Speaker 1: it's kind of embarrassing. Oh, absolutely, and I think it
Speaker 1: will only continue to be so. Yes, speaking of embarrassing,
Speaker 1: Sager missed out on our coverage of Marjorie Taylor Green's
Speaker 1: national divorce comments. So initially she was just like, we
Speaker 1: need a national divorce. Everybody I say says this because
Speaker 1: our differences are so irreconcilable. She kind of softened it
Speaker 1: to be like, well, we'd stay together as a country,
Speaker 1: but this would just limit the federal garb at something
Speaker 1: like that. Because she got so much backlash across the House.
Speaker 1: So Sean Hannity decided, is our second handity appearance here.
Speaker 1: He's becoming very central apparently decided to have her on
Speaker 1: his show and effectively back her up in this idea.
Speaker 1: Take a listen. Green is saying that a national divorce
Speaker 1: would empower individual states to form a smaller government, reduce
Speaker 1: the federal debt, set their own environmental standards. And the
Speaker 1: congresswoman has another idea as well, banning people who move
Speaker 1: from blue states to red states from voting for five
Speaker 1: years so they don't bring their bad politics with them.
Speaker 1: I mean, I look at topics, for example, how do
Speaker 1: you reconcile defund the police and nobail laws with law
Speaker 1: and order. How do you reconcile secure borders and wide
Speaker 1: open borders. How do you reconcile energy independence with energy
Speaker 1: dependence and New Green dealism? How do you reconcile peace
Speaker 1: through strength with people that want to gut our defense.
Speaker 1: I don't see middle ground on a lot of these issues.
Speaker 1: So what is the other answer if it's not a divorce? So, Sager,
Speaker 1: since you haven't reacted to all of this, let me
Speaker 1: get your thoughts. I don't know. I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: so pathetic, to be honest. First of all, Marjorie's whole
Speaker 1: turn towards the establishment. I guess that one took a
Speaker 1: hard right. Yes, not exactly what happened there. She's like
Speaker 1: returning right back to the kukery. I mean, I just
Speaker 1: find these so pathetic and only the most cringe grifting
Speaker 1: right wing Twitter personalities would ever think that this is
Speaker 1: actually going to happen. And you know, let's put on
Speaker 1: the historical hat. We have had many periods in our
Speaker 1: history which were full of far more domestic strife than this.
Speaker 1: And guess what, there was no war. The period after
Speaker 1: the American Civil War was far more contentious politically. Here,
Speaker 1: the period in the nineteenth maybe like the progressive area,
Speaker 1: but like nineteen hundred to let's say, like nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: just an immense amount of fighting over internally over like
Speaker 1: civil rights race, the economy, the progressive era combination, okay,
Speaker 1: and then the nineteen sixties, which for all the talk
Speaker 1: of how bad things are, we are nowhere even close
Speaker 1: to what things and how bad they were in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight. So I just this is all just a fantasy,
Speaker 1: and honestly it's just getting people ginned up. The part
Speaker 1: of the reason I recognize it as such as, look,
Speaker 1: I'm from Texas, and there is a cringe annoying element
Speaker 1: of like the most mid baseline Texas take of like, well,
Speaker 1: technically we were our own country and we could secede
Speaker 1: in you know, the war between the States and all
Speaker 1: that type of discussion with you know, the Confederate belt
Speaker 1: buckle holding onto something even though their parents are from
Speaker 1: like Ohio. Look, my point is that this is a larp.
Speaker 1: It's one where a lot of people online like love
Speaker 1: to get in these idiotic discussions, but fundamentally a it's
Speaker 1: not going to happen. But it's also a dumb idea. See,
Speaker 1: we actually fought an entire war to called the American
Speaker 1: Civil War, to resolve the question of whether this could
Speaker 1: ever be allowed to have happened, and three hundred some
Speaker 1: people died in the Union Army to make sure that
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to and preserve that. Then in the
Speaker 1: Constitution are out the right to secede. So there are
Speaker 1: so many fundamental levels as to why this is done.
Speaker 1: But for her, it's smart if you want to make money.
Speaker 1: You know, the most cringe elements of these people, they're
Speaker 1: loving this. Well. The thing that is funny to me
Speaker 1: is she keeps on insisting, like, I'm just talking to
Speaker 1: regular people, and that's what they tell me. This is
Speaker 1: the most online check of all time, which she demonstrates
Speaker 1: what idiot like exactly, and she's like, that's why it's
Speaker 1: got so many likes and retweets. It's like, no, this
Speaker 1: is the most twitter brained dumb ass thing ever. But yeah,
Speaker 1: does it serve her interests? Sure sure it does. Sure absolutely.
Speaker 1: And as I'm only pointed out, which I think is
Speaker 1: an important fact to remember, Marjorie Taylor Green lives in Georgia.
Speaker 1: What do you do with the state like Georgia it's
Speaker 1: a blue state? Yes, is it a red state? You know,
Speaker 1: two Democratic senators went for Joe Biden, but you got
Speaker 1: a Republican governor. So how's that one going to work out?
Speaker 1: And her new idea is if Democrats move into red states,
Speaker 1: they should be banned from voting for five years. So yeah,
Speaker 1: just very very open, like small d democratic instinct here
Speaker 1: to do. Like the people you don't like and disagree with,
Speaker 1: just don't let them vote. That's actually an old carpetbagging
Speaker 1: sentiment from the old South after the American Civil War. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why would anyone from the state which got burned to
Speaker 1: the ground during the last Civil War want to have
Speaker 1: another one like it? Ask people in Atlanta how that
Speaker 1: worked out for them. So anyway, it pissed me off.
Speaker 1: I find there's so many right wing personalities who are
Speaker 1: always you know, who are always leaning into this, and
Speaker 1: it's just try and get people like all these you know,
Speaker 1: like feeding the gun paranoia. Look, I support gun ownership
Speaker 1: always will. I mean, I'm people here know I'm not
Speaker 1: even for many restrictions I've seen. But I want to
Speaker 1: say I've seen a liberal version of this too. We
Speaker 1: support more taxes and support more so let them go,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So I mean there is a
Speaker 1: liberal version of this, but I don't know that a
Speaker 1: member of Congress on the Democratic side has articulated it,
Speaker 1: and I don't know that it's been given a serious
Speaker 1: platform on a liberal talk show either. Yeah, and nor
Speaker 1: should it. You know, this type of koukary like you
Speaker 1: should just keep it out to where it is. But congratulations.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it helped in terms of increasing serioence Twitter
Speaker 1: followers and in terms of your fundraised numbers. I personally
Speaker 1: find it disgusting. All right, Zacher, We're looking at it well.
Speaker 1: Foreign President trumpson making a lot of waves in recent
Speaker 1: days in his stance on Ukraine. Unquestionably, the pressure on
Speaker 1: the GOP base has forced his only serious potential rival,
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, to rhetorically adopt the same framing as him
Speaker 1: on Ukraine. After Biden's most recent Kiev. By a mile,
Speaker 1: it could be the most consequential stance of the entire campaign.
Speaker 1: A lot of this came together in the most recent
Speaker 1: video that Trump put out about Ukraine. Let's take a
Speaker 1: listen to some of it. World War III has never
Speaker 1: been closer than it is right now. We need to
Speaker 1: clean house of all of the warmongers and america last
Speaker 1: globalist in the deep State, the Pentagon, the State Apartment,
Speaker 1: and the National Security Industrial Complex. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: I was the only president in generations who didn't start
Speaker 1: a war? Is that I was the only president who
Speaker 1: rejected the catastrophic advice of many of Washington's generals, bureaucrats,
Speaker 1: and the so called diplomats who only know how to
Speaker 1: get us into conflict, but they don't know how to
Speaker 1: get us out. Okay, I'm really liking what I'm hearing
Speaker 1: so far. But is it true? The thing about Trump
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen is we had no idea what he
Speaker 1: was going to do. That was kind of the fun part.
Speaker 1: But with Trump in twenty twenty three, we actually do
Speaker 1: know when what he might do because he literally served
Speaker 1: in office. Is it true he rejected the advice of
Speaker 1: generals and warmongering diplomats. Well, in some cases yes, and
Speaker 1: arguably the most important theater of conflict at the time,
Speaker 1: though he did not, he actually did the opposite. Let's
Speaker 1: take Afghanistan. Trump made a big deal about withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: He pledged to end the war, and the most consequential
Speaker 1: thing that he did in his first months in office
Speaker 1: was instead to accept the advice of the National Security Council,
Speaker 1: the generals, and the warmongers who he hired to send
Speaker 1: four thousand more troops to Afghanistan. That move alone bought
Speaker 1: US five more years in Afghanistan. It eventually collapsed as
Speaker 1: a strategy when doing the exact same thing over and
Speaker 1: over it didn't work, and then eventually negotiated the peace
Speaker 1: deal with the Taliban. Look better late than never, I guess,
Speaker 1: but it's an important indicator. Then consider the theater of
Speaker 1: conflict that's most important today. Ukraine. President Obama took an
Speaker 1: immense amount of heat from hawkish Republicans for refusing to
Speaker 1: send Javelin and Ti tank missiles to the Ukraine for
Speaker 1: their war against rus Russian militias in the East. This
Speaker 1: is before the invasion. Obama refused to do it because
Speaker 1: he thought it would make relations with Russia worse and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't actually do that much on the battlefield. It
Speaker 1: was a key litmus test for Russian policy at the time. Well,
Speaker 1: Trump actually reversed the Obama policy in his first year
Speaker 1: in office, accepted the neocon advice of the Pentagon in
Speaker 1: the State Department, and greenlit anti tank missiles to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: If you'll remember, one of the reasons Democrats impeached him
Speaker 1: was for implying that those exact missile deliveries might be
Speaker 1: connected to trying to dig up dirt on Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: Belying it, though, is the fact that Trump actually did
Speaker 1: what Obama refused to do. He escalated the conflict in
Speaker 1: Ukraine on the advice of the generals. This is peer policy.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even mention that Trump consistently hired national security
Speaker 1: advisors like hr McMaster, Nikki Haley, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo,
Speaker 1: dozens of other neocons who outright disagreed with him completely,
Speaker 1: and in almost all cases he deferred to their judgment
Speaker 1: while in office. Personnel is policy, That's the saying in Washington.
Speaker 1: But okay, let's continue listening to the video. The State Department, Pentagon,
Speaker 1: and National Security establishment will be a very different place
Speaker 1: by the end of my administration. In fact, just into
Speaker 1: my administration, and it'll be a very different place, and
Speaker 1: it'll get things done. Okay, again, I really like the
Speaker 1: sound of what I'm hearing, but doesn't match reality. The
Speaker 1: first Secretary of Defense that Trump hired was whom General
Speaker 1: James Mattis, who consistently pushed for escalated in conflict in Syria,
Speaker 1: not withdrawing from Afghanistan, continued support for Ukraine, more kind
Speaker 1: of confrontation with Iran. Eventually, Mattis actually quit the administration
Speaker 1: and resigned because Trump wanted to withdraw from Syria and
Speaker 1: he didn't agree with that. So let's keep watching the
Speaker 1: video because there's even more irony. We'll also stop the
Speaker 1: lobbyists and the big defense contractors from going in and
Speaker 1: pushing our senior military and national security officials toward conflict,
Speaker 1: only to reward them when they retire with lucrative jobs
Speaker 1: getting paid millions and millions of dollars. That's a fantastic idea.
Speaker 1: There's just one problem. The person he literally hired to
Speaker 1: replace Mattis, well, it's got bad news. It was actually
Speaker 1: Mark Esper, who, at the time he was chosen was
Speaker 1: literally the top lobbyist for Raytheon in Washington, DC, one
Speaker 1: of the largest defense contractors in the world. And lo
Speaker 1: and behold, Esper did exactly what Trump is accusing people
Speaker 1: like him of doing. He consistently refused and stopped any
Speaker 1: efforts by Trump to actually withdraw from Afghanistan. In fact,
Speaker 1: his only criticism of Biden on Ukraine so far has
Speaker 1: been he hasn't sent enough weapons to Ukraine. Are you
Speaker 1: sensing a pattern here? If you're a Trump bootlicker, you
Speaker 1: can always find an excuse. Oh he tried, so what
Speaker 1: he hired these people, He's a grown man. Why did
Speaker 1: he hire them? His whole thing was hiring and firing people.
Speaker 1: In fact, two of the people posturing against him, Nikki
Speaker 1: Haley and Mike Pompeo, literally worked for him and have
Speaker 1: both been beating the war drum on Ukraine. I get
Speaker 1: that if you're a Trump person, this is hard to hear.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm just one of those people who likes
Speaker 1: to see some of these things actually done. A hard
Speaker 1: and a tough lesson that I learned through the Trump
Speaker 1: years is almost all of it is just talk. Trump
Speaker 1: does and never has had the inclination or the follow
Speaker 1: through to be a competent commander and she or an
Speaker 1: effective vessel for policy priorities. Now, to be fair, it's
Speaker 1: possible he has changed many people around him, like Johnny DeStefano.
Speaker 1: They said it will never happen again, that there's a
Speaker 1: new plan where they're going to fire the federal bureaucracy
Speaker 1: and bring in people who have displayed total policy alignment
Speaker 1: with Trump. We'll see I've heard it all before. You
Speaker 1: should remember Trump was literally so incompetent. He couldn't get
Speaker 1: the travel ban done, he couldn't get Daca rescinded. He
Speaker 1: lost his census battle over the illegal immigrants at the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, all because the people who work for him
Speaker 1: messed up the basic legal filings. Keep that in mind
Speaker 1: when you hear him talk. I was excited once too,
Speaker 1: some of this could come reality. Unfortunately, almost all of
Speaker 1: it did not happen. Here's the thing with Trump, I
Speaker 1: think the only effective case. And if you want to
Speaker 1: hear my reaction to Sagres's monologue, become a premium subscriber
Speaker 1: today at Breakingpoints dot com. Cristal, what are you taking
Speaker 1: a look at it? Well, guys, I got a little
Speaker 1: mystery for you today. Take a look at this map.
Speaker 1: So this was recently published in Economics. Paper was analyzed
Speaker 1: here by the Washington Post. This it shows the nation's
Speaker 1: average credit scores by county. Dark blue is bad, mustard brown.
Speaker 1: I guess you'll call that is good and an obvious
Speaker 1: trend leaves off the page. The South as a region
Speaker 1: has abysmal credit scores starting in southern Virginia and in Appalachia,
Speaker 1: and creeping all the way down the Panhandle in Florida
Speaker 1: and over to Texas. You see a whole lot of
Speaker 1: people who are struggling with a lot of debt. Now
Speaker 1: you might think this is a really simple story of class,
Speaker 1: and in a sense it is. Overall, places with higher
Speaker 1: poverty do have lower credit scores, but this dynamic did
Speaker 1: not come close to accounting for this highly regional and
Speaker 1: very specific phenomena. Even in wealthy areas in the South,
Speaker 1: people had lower FICO scores than their Midwestern counterparts. Now
Speaker 1: that's a terrible situation for Southerners. There are few things
Speaker 1: as pernicious as debt for constraining your life choices and
Speaker 1: crippling you with stress and anxiety. Throughout history, debt has
Speaker 1: actually been used as a tool of control. You can
Speaker 1: think of the company store in mining towns where workers
Speaker 1: would end up with debts they could not pay and
Speaker 1: effectively working as indentured servants. Or you can think about
Speaker 1: the IMF in the World Bank, which lend developing countries
Speaker 1: money and then they use that debt as leveraged to
Speaker 1: four shock doctrine neoliberal policies onto them. When a person
Speaker 1: is in debt, their freedom is constrained. Now, debt and
Speaker 1: bad credit can quickly mount into financial ruin and personal disaster.
Speaker 1: How are you going to finance a car when yours dies?
Speaker 1: How are you going to get an apartment? And for
Speaker 1: those who are already behind financially, a low credit score
Speaker 1: means you will be plant paying brutally high interest rates,
Speaker 1: helping to feed a cycle where you just get further
Speaker 1: and further behind. So what is causing this regional crisis
Speaker 1: of debt and of bad credit? Let me show you
Speaker 1: another map that is going to make it pretty clear.
Speaker 1: This one is too, also courtesy of the Washington Post here,
Speaker 1: and it's a map of medical debt. According to credit
Speaker 1: data from the Urban Institute that's quoted in this article,
Speaker 1: ninety two of the one hundred counties with the highest
Speaker 1: share of adults struggling with medical debt, they're all in
Speaker 1: the South. The remainder are neighboring states Oklahoma and Missouri. Now,
Speaker 1: when you think about it, it makes total sense. Medical
Speaker 1: debt is the number one cause of bankruptcy in America,
Speaker 1: and the total size this crushing debt burden, it's actually
Speaker 1: even bigger than we had previously imagined. Recent research found
Speaker 1: that one hundred and forty billion dollars in medical debt
Speaker 1: is now in collections. That's nearly double previous estimates from
Speaker 1: back in twenty sixteen. Between twenty nine and twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: medical debt actually became the single largest source of debt
Speaker 1: that is currently held by collections agencies. Now, I once
Speaker 1: you understand other wealthy nations would look at this as
Speaker 1: utter insanity, at a moral atrocity, because it is we
Speaker 1: ruin people, We destroy their lives because they happen to
Speaker 1: get sick. And there's a very specific reason why Southern
Speaker 1: states are the ones with the highest levels of medical
Speaker 1: debt and the worst attendant credit scores. It's not an accident.
Speaker 1: It's not about overall poverty. It is a specific political choice.
Speaker 1: These are the states where governors decided they would rather
Speaker 1: virtue signal about how much they hate Obama than expand
Speaker 1: Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act. Now, look,
Speaker 1: I am not a big fan of Obamacare, as that
Speaker 1: left the statusquo system largely unchanged, with health and jurors, hospitals,
Speaker 1: every other part of the crop for profit healthcare system
Speaker 1: feeding like pigs at the trough while patients continue to
Speaker 1: get screwed. But Obamacare was an improvement over the previous corrupt,
Speaker 1: discussing and moral system. And now, after having been law
Speaker 1: for over a decade, states that went forward with the
Speaker 1: full medicaid expansion have significantly separated from states that did
Speaker 1: not on that metric of medical debt. According to The
Speaker 1: New York Times, the states that have declined to expand medicaid,
Speaker 1: particularly in the South, started out having more medical debt
Speaker 1: before Obamacare passed, and since other states have expanded Medicaid,
Speaker 1: that chasm has grown wider. In twenty twenty, americans living
Speaker 1: in states that did not expand medicaid owed an average
Speaker 1: of three hundred and seventy five dollars more than those
Speaker 1: in states that participated in the program. That is roughly
Speaker 1: a thirty percent increase from the gap that existed the
Speaker 1: year before enactment. Now you could see on that chart,
Speaker 1: how the sooner you expanded medicaid to cover working class people,
Speaker 1: the better as a state you're faring on medical debt.
Speaker 1: But let's not forget the existence of such a chart
Speaker 1: at all is a total failure. It's not just in
Speaker 1: the South where politicians have made political choices that have
Speaker 1: miserated their constituents. It's the entire nation debt and the
Speaker 1: poor credit scores that come along with it are real
Speaker 1: constraints on freedom and the ability to pursue happiness. We
Speaker 1: all deserve the freedom to go to the doctor when
Speaker 1: we need to, to be able to take off work
Speaker 1: to recover, and to not have our lives ruined because
Speaker 1: we happen to get sick. Nearly everyone accepts this, yet
Speaker 1: nothing changes, not because we can't make other choices, but
Speaker 1: because political elites, bankrolled by those who profit off the
Speaker 1: current system, do everything in their power to block change
Speaker 1: and convince you that it's all impossible. These regional disparities
Speaker 1: highlighted so graphically on that map, they are a sharp
Speaker 1: reminder that we are not just powerless as a nation
Speaker 1: to improve the condition of our people's lives. Different policy
Speaker 1: choices lead to starkly measurably different outcomes. And the different
Speaker 1: outcome I want to see is zero medical debt for
Speaker 1: anyone anywhere. And I thought this was really fascinating. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have put the pieces together, oh, I asked, And
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Christ's monologue
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot Com. All Right, guys,
Speaker 1: great having you back, Soger, thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for holding down the ford. Emily did a fantastic job.
Speaker 1: I really did, sir. I miss being here on the show.
Speaker 1: I gotta say it. It's like it's like your baby
Speaker 1: that you're like, oh man, he was so like five am.
Speaker 1: I was like, cover this, take this out. Yeah. Making
Speaker 1: sure you guys were all amazing. Thank you all so
Speaker 1: much for your support and for everything. I'm really glad
Speaker 1: that we have counterpoints, you know, that we can lean on,
Speaker 1: and we've got great partner content continuing for the weekend. Spencer,
Speaker 1: by the way, doing a fantastic job. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: him and talk to him on the show. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed his latest video. It's always a privilege developments for
Speaker 1: moving on the studio, on the logo, on all the
Speaker 1: new developments. Will reveal all of that to you as
Speaker 1: soon as we can. But it's great to be back.
Speaker 1: We're gonna hit the ground running. Twenty twenty four is
Speaker 1: finally here. Things are heating up. It's gonna be a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot of fun and it's always a
Speaker 1: privilege to do it with you and with everybody who
Speaker 1: is here. So we love you and we will see
Speaker 1: you all later