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.
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Speaker 2: But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody,
Speaker 2: Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today.
Speaker 2: What do we have, Christal, indeed we do.
Speaker 1: We are making a little bit of breaking points history
Speaker 1: this morning. That focus group that we have been teasing
Speaker 1: now for I guess weeks, that's this point. We have
Speaker 1: some results that we can share with you. The gentleman
Speaker 1: who ran the focus group, James from Jail Partner, is
Speaker 1: going to be here to go through some of the
Speaker 1: top clips. We've got stuff for you though that we're
Speaker 1: going to be unrolling all weeks, so we're very excited
Speaker 1: about that. In addition to that, we have some big
Speaker 1: news stories that we want to cover. There was a
Speaker 1: real big expos in the New York Times about an
Speaker 1: American arms dealer to Ukraine. That is very revealing. This
Speaker 1: is just as the G twenty summit has also wrapped up.
Speaker 1: We have some big news I know you guys are
Speaker 1: going to be excited about. Nancy Pelosi has announced she
Speaker 1: is running for re election again, Sager, So everyone rejoice
Speaker 1: about that. And in terms of JFK news, this is
Speaker 1: an interesting development. One of the Secret Service agents that
Speaker 1: was there in Dallas at the time of his assassination
Speaker 1: has decided he wants to tell his story and it
Speaker 1: does not line up with the official narrative.
Speaker 3: So we'll break those details down for you as well.
Speaker 1: But before we get to any of that, huge, huge,
Speaker 1: thank you the premium subscribers who made this focus group possible.
Speaker 2: Yes, I look, we keep saying it. We finally have
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Speaker 2: One of the things I'm most proud of in our
Speaker 2: focus group, not only about the attention it's already got,
Speaker 2: you know, even though it's been one day, is that
Speaker 2: we got to things that the regular media companies just
Speaker 2: were not getting to. And I think what we really
Speaker 2: did is we are giving people a very good view
Speaker 2: of like this is what people actually think. Show don't
Speaker 2: tell is the most important thing. Too many people are
Speaker 2: always speaking on behalf of others, and you know, we're
Speaker 2: very proud to elevate just normal voices and be like, listen,
Speaker 2: this is These are the people who support Trump or
Speaker 2: support to Santis, to support for vacer some people who
Speaker 2: are undecided. This is where they get their news.
Speaker 3: We got we got a Doug Burgham supporter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got a Doug Burgham supporter, which is hilarious.
Speaker 2: But the point, you know that from watching the whole thing,
Speaker 2: which our amazing crew did such a good jobs, I
Speaker 2: was like I just came away with a way better
Speaker 2: understanding of like how people think of like people who
Speaker 2: are engaging this you know, normal everyday life on Facebook, moms,
Speaker 2: school teachers, people who are retired, and they're like, this
Speaker 2: is what they actually think about politics. So refreshing actually
Speaker 2: to take a break from whatever, you know, pundits and
Speaker 2: how they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean listen, Like polls have some use that
Speaker 1: can be limited, but to actually hear voters in their
Speaker 1: own words subscribe, who they support, why they support, and
Speaker 1: what they think about the major issues of the day,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's it's not scientific, but it's
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable just to give people a sense of how
Speaker 1: we're doing this. So for the main show, we're going
Speaker 1: to be showing you some of the top clips every
Speaker 1: day this week and providing you, you know, with our
Speaker 1: thoughts and reaction to some of the really interesting moments.
Speaker 3: Today we're going to focus on kind of.
Speaker 1: The top line, who is everybody supporting and why and
Speaker 1: some of that that information, and then throughout the week
Speaker 1: we also have some more issue specific clips that we
Speaker 1: can show you as well. From premium subscribers, you are
Speaker 1: going to have access to the whole thing.
Speaker 3: This week, so you'll be able to get.
Speaker 1: Access to all of that first and then later in
Speaker 1: the week we'll have.
Speaker 3: Put it all together for everybody.
Speaker 2: Here you go. Yeah, So, as you said, premium subs,
Speaker 2: you guys are going to get the full thing before
Speaker 2: anybody else. We're going to give you a full, completely
Speaker 2: produced version of which we're working on. We're again, we're
Speaker 2: really really proud of it. With all of that, we
Speaker 2: got James Johnson and Jail Partner standing by. Let's get
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: As we have been discussing at length at this point,
Speaker 1: we hear Breaking Points, with the help of our premium subscribers,
Speaker 1: commissioned a focus group of New Hampshire Republicans to offer
Speaker 1: their insights, how they're thinking about this primary who they're
Speaker 1: interested in, who they're not interested in, what issues are
Speaker 1: the priorities.
Speaker 3: Et cetera.
Speaker 1: And if you want to help us do this sort
Speaker 1: of work in the future, and if you want to
Speaker 1: get the whole beautifully edited piece of video and all
Speaker 1: the focus group details first in your inbox, make sure
Speaker 1: you subscribe Breakingpoints dot com. Without further ado, though, we
Speaker 1: want to bring in James Johnson of Jail Partners, who
Speaker 1: was the moderator of this focus group, and by the way,
Speaker 1: did a fantastic job getting a lot of very interesting
Speaker 1: information and out of these voters.
Speaker 2: Welcome James, thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, So we want to show some of
Speaker 1: the clips. But before we do what we're sort of
Speaker 1: your top line takeaways. Being there with this group the entire.
Speaker 4: Time, I think us first we're saying who we actually selected.
Speaker 4: So we went for likely New Hampshire primary voters. Almost
Speaker 4: all of them were vegeted Republicans and there was one
Speaker 4: independent because obviously don't forget independence can vote in the
Speaker 4: New Hampshire presidential primary. Who intended to participate in the primary,
Speaker 4: and we got a mix of people, some who made
Speaker 4: up the mind, some who are on the side is
Speaker 4: we really didn't know going into the room who they
Speaker 4: were going to say they were voting for. And as
Speaker 4: we'll see, it is still Trump's game to lose that
Speaker 4: he dominates this focus group, even though there is a
Speaker 4: split view on him. Some are sort of okay with him,
Speaker 4: some love him, some really don't like him.
Speaker 2: It's all about Trump.
Speaker 4: We asked them, you know, what are their most important issues,
Speaker 4: and we had the economy, we had reproductive rights and
Speaker 4: other issues. But really, when we got down to the
Speaker 4: nitty gritty, it was Trump that it was all about.
Speaker 2: One of the defining ones that you guys did was
Speaker 2: where are you getting news from? Which actually revealed a
Speaker 2: lot about all of them. So we have their clip,
Speaker 2: why don't we take a listen.
Speaker 4: I was saying to these guys, we did have a
Speaker 4: fight once in the UK, so you know, you have
Speaker 4: to make sure that you beat the good people of
Speaker 4: Britain by not having a fight. First, name what you
Speaker 4: do for the thing?
Speaker 2: Where you getting news from?
Speaker 5: Okay, James, I work in it and I get my
Speaker 5: news from podcasts or the internet, like a news site
Speaker 5: like a CNN or NBC.
Speaker 2: Any particular podcasts.
Speaker 5: Five thirty eight podcasts.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I am Dana. I'm a full time homemaker and
Speaker 6: I get my news from like a daily email briefing,
Speaker 6: which one the morning brew.
Speaker 7: Hi, my name is Neve. I am a homemaker, homeschooler,
Speaker 7: and I get most of my news shared amongst other
Speaker 7: moms and folks in non mainstream type groups.
Speaker 2: What kind of sort of can give you an example of
Speaker 2: any of those, like.
Speaker 7: Health freedom groups or folks who are more leaning like
Speaker 7: opposing mainstream media.
Speaker 8: Hi, I'm Jennifer. I'm a business analyst, and I get
Speaker 8: my news from mostly the internet, different websites NBC, CNBC,
Speaker 8: Fox News, and whatever. The one that pops up on
Speaker 8: my computer that I don't even ask for it shows
Speaker 8: me the headlines, okay, and also when I check my
Speaker 8: email the headlines there.
Speaker 9: My name is Debbie and I am a homemaker, part
Speaker 9: time teacher, and I get my news from my husband,
Speaker 9: but I do watch Fox News and techer Carlson.
Speaker 4: Great, thanks so much?
Speaker 2: Is that calls on X now right, Jim.
Speaker 10: I'm in advertising sales and I give most of my
Speaker 10: news from either Glenn Beck shot Hannity and the two
Speaker 10: guys at noon, and I heard radio.
Speaker 7: Hi.
Speaker 11: My name is John. I'm a retired service technician and
Speaker 11: I get my news from Newsmax.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 12: I'm Alexis. I'm an administrator for a state agency, and
Speaker 12: I get my news primarily from the internet, local TV
Speaker 12: stations as well as national ones primarily WMR, as well
Speaker 12: as the local Conquered Monitor and other local newspapers.
Speaker 2: So what do you make of that, James? What did
Speaker 2: where they got their news from? Eventually then inform some
Speaker 2: of their answers because before we preview what they actually
Speaker 2: say about who they're going to vote for.
Speaker 4: Well, I think what's very worth noting there is that
Speaker 4: there's a lot of sort of independent news sources, some
Speaker 4: alternative news sources, and really what sort of fed through
Speaker 4: the entire focus group was a real skepticism about traditional
Speaker 4: news media. Yes, and they were skeptical about stories that heard.
Speaker 4: They talked about how they would go and google stories
Speaker 4: after they'd seen them to check to fact check them
Speaker 4: and see there And it's worth saying that is something
Speaker 4: we see in all of our focus groups. There's a
Speaker 4: big move away from those traditional sources, including in the
Speaker 4: United Kingdom as well as in the US. So I
Speaker 4: think we see that informing a bit of that. And
Speaker 4: you saw the chap there mentioned Newsmax, You saw others
Speaker 4: mention other sources. They are coming at this from a
Speaker 4: very diffuse perspective, not just lying on one classic cable
Speaker 4: news network or one newspaper.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: That was what jumped down at me was just how
Speaker 1: many different answers were given. I mean, no one gave
Speaker 1: the same answer, and Fox did not dominate.
Speaker 3: That's what I was going to say.
Speaker 1: If you had asked this question of Republican primary voters
Speaker 1: a decade ago, I think almost all of them would
Speaker 1: have been like Fox News, but the landscape is so
Speaker 1: much more fraction now. Now, I will say, if you're
Speaker 1: like you can kind of very closely expect who's going
Speaker 1: to be where on the political spectrum and what things
Speaker 1: they're going to focus on based on the news preferences
Speaker 1: that they give at the top there, which is part
Speaker 1: of why we.
Speaker 3: Wanted to introduce them to the audience with that clip.
Speaker 1: Now, let's take a listen to another section where you
Speaker 1: ask them who are they supporting and what are they
Speaker 1: thinking about the Let's take a listen to that.
Speaker 4: So write it down the name of the person, the
Speaker 4: name of the candidate who you're currently supporting.
Speaker 9: I would say Trump, And the reason being is because
Speaker 9: I would look back at his presidential days and all
Speaker 9: that was accomplished and what America was like, and then
Speaker 9: I would fast forward to where America is now and
Speaker 9: I wouldn't want to keep going that way.
Speaker 10: Trump, there we go, sorry, And the reason being is
Speaker 10: his past accomplishments we did in you know, four three
Speaker 10: and a half four years, and he does support the
Speaker 10: working class a lot more, I think than the other
Speaker 10: party does right now, and also what he's fighting now
Speaker 10: when he's going through the political firestorm of all these affidavits.
Speaker 10: As he said, I'm fighting for you because if this
Speaker 10: can happen to me, it will happen to you. If
Speaker 10: you say the wrong thing. You're in trouble today.
Speaker 11: Trump definitely because he needs to put his back where
Speaker 11: we were with oil depends, secured borders, great economy, just
Speaker 11: looking off for us. He made give a military or
Speaker 11: raise when they hadn't happened for decades or years, I
Speaker 11: should say, and he made the VA better than what
Speaker 11: it was, and he's just he needs to take over
Speaker 11: where he left off, which is making us where we were,
Speaker 11: especially with the oil independence.
Speaker 12: Hey maybe I can't remember the guy's name from South Dakota.
Speaker 12: I was looking into some of his ideas, and I
Speaker 12: would think that we should still stay with a Republican
Speaker 12: but not necessarily Trump. I'd like to see some a
Speaker 12: little bit more of rational thinking come through. While I
Speaker 12: like how Trump had some ideas that were great and
Speaker 12: his financial abilities were leading us in the right direction,
Speaker 12: some of his changes that he put in while he
Speaker 12: was in tterm directly affected my work and I didn't
Speaker 12: agree with them some of them.
Speaker 2: Doug Burgham, is that who you were thinking of?
Speaker 8: Great?
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm currently undecided, but I would be leaning towards
Speaker 5: Governor DeSantis.
Speaker 2: A main reason we just executive.
Speaker 5: Experience of things. He's accomplished in a very purple state,
Speaker 5: can get things done, had the largest victory in recent
Speaker 5: memory for Florida even though it's a divided state. So
Speaker 5: you know, he can get things done. And I just
Speaker 5: don't think he's quite as divisive or antagonistic as President
Speaker 5: Trump would be.
Speaker 6: I'm considering the vague for my vote. I think he's
Speaker 6: sort of an outsider, and I don't think he has
Speaker 6: any political ties that are going to influence everything I think,
Speaker 6: So I'm not so I'm considering right now.
Speaker 7: Leading to Trump because he isn't a politician. He is
Speaker 7: a businessman. On his list of accomplishments was tremendously good
Speaker 7: for our country. My main hang up is that he
Speaker 7: pushed through the sort of COVID things, the shots and whatnot.
Speaker 8: I honestly don't know yet. I really don't. I agree
Speaker 8: with the warp speed kind of did it for me.
Speaker 8: So I'm not one hundred percent for Trump, but desanded.
Speaker 8: I see some good points, but I'm not really positive yet.
Speaker 8: I haven't really made up my mind yet. Might be naive,
Speaker 8: but I was hoping for somebody out of nowhere to
Speaker 8: come in.
Speaker 4: I want to pick up on why you're sort of
Speaker 4: leaning away from Trump.
Speaker 5: I think we'll have a much better shount of winning
Speaker 5: without Trump at the top of the ticket. I honestly
Speaker 5: think if Trump isn't on top of the ticket, we're
Speaker 5: going to lose all the state races in New Hampshire
Speaker 5: because he's very unliked, very unlikable. I appreciate all the
Speaker 5: things he did, but in office, I think he did
Speaker 5: do a good job, but he's not a likable person.
Speaker 5: He's not a great person, and I think it would
Speaker 5: be a devastating effect on Republicans across the country to
Speaker 5: have him at the top of the ticket. I think
Speaker 5: we would feel that everywhere not worth it.
Speaker 10: Going with the vaccine, I too do not agree with
Speaker 10: the vaccine and got a vaccine vaccine myself. It's a
Speaker 10: free choice to do so. I know Trump did say
Speaker 10: I would not force the vaccine anybody. I do believe
Speaker 10: that Trump was given some bad advice pit Chucky with
Speaker 10: doctor Fosse and I forget the other woman that was there.
Speaker 10: There's a lot of manipulation going on that the media
Speaker 10: will not be truthful about, but that is allow what
Speaker 10: took place. I think you got some bad advice.
Speaker 9: Well, there's many things that I agree with them on.
Speaker 9: I mean, the four years. There are some things, like
Speaker 9: I think a lot of times he speaks without thinking,
Speaker 9: and I think that that's a detriment to himself. But
Speaker 9: I do think that the media warps so much of
Speaker 9: what is truly going on, and I feel like that's
Speaker 9: a huge problem this in many areas, like with many
Speaker 9: of these candidates. I mean, it's hard to know the
Speaker 9: true person underneath the met because it really it depends.
Speaker 9: If you listen to CNN, it tells you one thing,
Speaker 9: if you listen to Fox News, it tells you a
Speaker 9: different thing. How can we make America great again? Because
Speaker 9: it's not great right now. It's not great. And I've
Speaker 9: got six kids and I'm watching them have to grow
Speaker 9: up in this and that worries me about what they're
Speaker 9: going to have to live with if somebody doesn't start
Speaker 9: shaking the boots somewhere.
Speaker 11: He's a businessman and he has a lot of hot
Speaker 11: back on him, and that's why he says some of
Speaker 11: the things that he does because he's just he's a businessman,
Speaker 11: but he does right by the people. He could walk
Speaker 11: away anytime he wants, with all his money, but he's
Speaker 11: still fighting to come back and say, I have to
Speaker 11: finish the job. I have to make as great again.
Speaker 11: When he put the tarifts on China, was bringing jobs
Speaker 11: back and doing the border. So that's why I like
Speaker 11: the guy. And yes, he doesn't say a lot of
Speaker 11: presidential things that he should be saying, but he also
Speaker 11: says a lot of things that people are thinking, but
Speaker 11: they won't come right out and say it. So let's
Speaker 11: call it what it is.
Speaker 4: I've seen you shaking a head a couple of times.
Speaker 5: I'm baffled by these arguments. I mean, he got bad advice.
Speaker 5: You want a president who got bad advice? That's really
Speaker 5: a cop out. But I think mail and ballots are
Speaker 5: here to stay, So they're here. So the Beadia trumping
Speaker 5: up COVID and bringing COVID into the story, you think
Speaker 5: that helps President Biden to have a COVID outbreak on
Speaker 5: his watch. That definitely does not help him. So I
Speaker 5: think could Trump beat him. Maybe we all agree that
Speaker 5: Biden is totally incompetent, I think, and Trump already lost
Speaker 5: to him. Now maybe it was a rigged election, but
Speaker 5: it shouldn't even been close. Right, He's Biden is totally incompetent.
Speaker 5: He shouldn't even win five states. So why don't we
Speaker 5: choose a candidate it doesn't come with all the baggage
Speaker 5: and all the issues and all the media hating him
Speaker 5: and all that. Let's get a fresh voice in there
Speaker 5: that can really whoever is the Republican nominee, should wipe
Speaker 5: the floor with. But it not be in a situation
Speaker 5: where a mail in ballad or media thing to swing.
Speaker 5: It shouldn't even be that close, you know, don't leave
Speaker 5: it to the rest.
Speaker 1: Right, So obviously these things aren't scientific.
Speaker 3: They're just a snapchot. But that being said, I feel like.
Speaker 1: You got a lot of the like, Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: a lot of what you see in some of the
Speaker 1: interpersonal dynamics and some of the things they like about
Speaker 1: dropping some of the question marks. They have also love
Speaker 1: the lady who's the Doug Burghram supporter who doesn't remember
Speaker 1: his name or what state he's throwing. And I genuinely
Speaker 1: mean that. I appreciate she's like, I researched it and
Speaker 1: I linked his policy positions.
Speaker 3: But what did you make of that?
Speaker 1: Because it does seem like, even though there was some
Speaker 1: favorable sentiment towards the Santis and even towards some of
Speaker 1: the other candidates, Trump is really still the central defining
Speaker 1: issue of this whole thing.
Speaker 4: He is and this audience matches really what the New
Speaker 4: Hampshire poles look like around half backing Trump and the
Speaker 4: other sort of diffused across other candidates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, I fell there are three key.
Speaker 4: Groups in this focus group that are in that New
Speaker 4: Hampshire Electra as a whole. One of the sort of
Speaker 4: Trump true believers. And you saw that with those three
Speaker 4: people at the back there, you know they were he
Speaker 4: had made a values connect with them. He was their guy.
Speaker 4: He smashed it as the president in his view, in
Speaker 4: their view, and they really wanted to see him come back.
Speaker 4: Then we had the sort of Trump agnostics, those people
Speaker 4: in the middle ground. You saw the lady in the
Speaker 4: front row there talking about she liked him, she had
Speaker 4: a few concerns about COVID. They doubt Trump's effectiveness. But
Speaker 4: you can still see them backing hit them, you can
Speaker 4: still see them backing him come a general election. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then you have that third group really sort of
Speaker 4: exemplified by James on the front row there, who we
Speaker 4: just saw these people who are opposed to Trump. They
Speaker 4: think that he's not only lost his effectiveness, he's lost
Speaker 4: some of this sort of more right to govern. And
Speaker 4: those three groups are absolutely key to sort of who
Speaker 4: can win because Trump and he needs to carry the
Speaker 4: first two of those groups, and he's got.
Speaker 2: It there you go.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even have to carry all of the first
Speaker 1: two of those groups. And so part of what I'd
Speaker 1: love to get more from you on to me, well, yes,
Speaker 1: Trump is the dominant central figure. It did show if
Speaker 1: you did have one candidate that could consolidate the other
Speaker 1: two groups, they maybe would have a path, They maybe
Speaker 1: would have a shot. And there were some questions raised
Speaker 1: there that were, you know, part of the Desantas pitch.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk more about COVID in a minute,
Speaker 1: but I was actually surprised how many people at this
Speaker 1: late date are bringing up COVID and as a core
Speaker 1: critique of Trump. Of like, well, I liked a lot
Speaker 1: of what he did, but what he did in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: I have some questions about that. I'm not sure about that.
Speaker 1: That's something that DeSantis has tried to run on. What
Speaker 1: did they think of some of the other the other candidates.
Speaker 4: Well, Rond de Santis came out of this pretty well. Okay,
Speaker 4: they're not saying they'd vote for him, but when we
Speaker 4: asked them about what their views on him, they were
Speaker 4: uniformly favorable. One of the Trump true believers at the
Speaker 4: back there said why couldn't he run in four years time?
Speaker 4: And others were positive. These Trump attack lines on DeSantis
Speaker 4: haven't landed with Trump supporters. And also you see that
Speaker 4: with Tim Scott as well. There are positive things said
Speaker 4: about him. Nicki Haley was a little bit more divisive,
Speaker 4: Mike Pence a bit more divisive, coming up against that,
Speaker 4: coming up against those pro Trump people, you know, rubbing
Speaker 4: up against them badly a little bit. But you know,
Speaker 4: the Santists, the Tim Scott's, they are liked. The problem
Speaker 4: is is, as you say, there's no one name for
Speaker 4: them to rally around, and as long as that field
Speaker 4: stays diffused, It's exactly what happened in twenty sixteen. Trump
Speaker 4: won in New Hampshire in twenty sixteen because he had
Speaker 4: a split field up against him, and we're headed towards
Speaker 4: the same thing.
Speaker 3: Well, the important is Doug Burgham's race to lose.
Speaker 2: The important thing to also see is that they disagree
Speaker 2: on where they depart from Trump. So like James, the
Speaker 2: IT guy, he's like, well, I think he was divisive.
Speaker 2: I think he's got bad advice. But then the other
Speaker 2: people are like, well, actually I don't like the act
Speaker 2: they did, Operation Warp Speed. You know, it's like they
Speaker 2: have very different views about how exactly that's going to go,
Speaker 2: which is why I don't think one person could unite.
Speaker 2: And let's turn then to COVID, because COVID actually leaped
Speaker 2: out to us. It became really interesting the mainstream media,
Speaker 2: who we shared our focus group with, they actually picked
Speaker 2: on on this immediately. Was a lot of the fears
Speaker 2: around return of COVID restrictions and of impact on the election,
Speaker 2: mail and balloting and all that. Let's take a listen
Speaker 2: to that and we're going to talk about it afterwards.
Speaker 4: Like candidates have said it, I've said, can can Donald
Speaker 4: Trump beat Jay Biden?
Speaker 10: Problem is the fair election? So here you go again,
Speaker 10: we're starting the cranking up with the COVID supposedly with
Speaker 10: the masking, and you know it's going to it's the
Speaker 10: same play that it did four years ago. They're going
Speaker 10: to play the mail in ballots and the chieting's going
Speaker 10: to take place, and you know it's just it's gonna
Speaker 10: be the same scenario again.
Speaker 9: I work in the schools and a couple of the
Speaker 9: teachers were like, you know, already Gove's coming in the masks.
Speaker 9: Some of the schools are already going online, some of
Speaker 9: the things are getting some of the colleges are getting
Speaker 9: shut down, like it's it's like a deja vu. And
Speaker 9: then you think about it, Okay, so then the mail
Speaker 9: in ballot's got to come, Like do I think he
Speaker 9: can beat them?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? If it's fair.
Speaker 4: So you think that that that COVID stuff, you think
Speaker 4: is linked to the elections and who's who's doing that,
Speaker 4: Who's orchestrating that?
Speaker 10: The Democratic Party? It was It was an articles written
Speaker 10: by I figure what the news magazine was, but as
Speaker 10: a as a little news magazine, and they came out
Speaker 10: and basically said it was planned to have the election
Speaker 10: go the way it was and a lot of Republicans
Speaker 10: went along with that plan because they wanted to keep
Speaker 10: the swamp. They want to keep the dirty politics. And
Speaker 10: some of the Republicans are involved with that, and it
Speaker 10: was a planned event and they use COVID as a
Speaker 10: way to push it in.
Speaker 8: With the pandemic. We see it coming again, and there's
Speaker 8: a lot of writing on the wall. I think there's
Speaker 8: a lot of money exchange. There's big farmers behind it all.
Speaker 8: As far as can Trump beat Biden, I think I
Speaker 8: could probably beat Biden at this point. The guy's stumbling around,
Speaker 8: forgets where he is, can't remember his words, doesn't know what
Speaker 8: he's talking about, And so I wonder, like, really, who's
Speaker 8: who's running. We put the name Biden on it, but
Speaker 8: who's really hold those puppet strings and can jump win
Speaker 8: over those?
Speaker 4: Put your hands up if you think the twenty twenty
Speaker 4: election was rigged. I'm repeating what you guys have some
Speaker 4: of you guys have said back to me. Here this
Speaker 4: idea that COVID is coming back up again. Put your
Speaker 4: hands up if you think that's a deliberate plan to
Speaker 4: try and basically stitch the next election up for the Democrats.
Speaker 11: It's all about fear and that's what it is. It's
Speaker 11: all above fear. Scare everybody, stay indoors, wear your masked.
Speaker 11: COVID is coming back. I'm here to help.
Speaker 2: It's fear, it's.
Speaker 8: Control to divide people.
Speaker 4: Well, if you think that's the case, you know, I
Speaker 4: ask the question again. You know, for at least four
Speaker 4: of you nodding there. You know, I don't know about
Speaker 4: the exact semantics, but you're repeating, aback what you said
Speaker 4: to me. You put your hands up if you do
Speaker 4: think that there's at least some connection between COVID coming
Speaker 4: back and the next election being rigged for the Democrats.
Speaker 2: So clearly it's not only about return of COVID restrictions.
Speaker 2: I've seen this too in terms of people, you know,
Speaker 2: like talking about stories of this one college bringing back
Speaker 2: mass mandates, so like, oh, that's going to justify you
Speaker 2: know this, I know Alex Jones and others who have
Speaker 2: been talking about it. So clearly that is going through,
Speaker 2: you know, to a lot of the voters. But then
Speaker 2: you also saw the divide in terms of somebody like James,
Speaker 2: the person in our focus group who didn't raise his
Speaker 2: hand whenever he said the election was stolen. He was
Speaker 2: the only one who departed in the previous clip. He's like,
Speaker 2: why would that be good for President Biden? But I mean,
Speaker 2: the divide there seemed one of the starter ones and
Speaker 2: one of the things that really jumped out that we
Speaker 2: didn't expect to see.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and it's correlating with some sort of pro Trump
Speaker 4: on the one hand, concerns about twenty twenty election and
Speaker 4: these you know, couple of people in the group who
Speaker 4: were resistant to those kind of things, but that was
Speaker 4: the majority of you in that group that COVID is
Speaker 4: linked to the next election basically going the same way
Speaker 4: in their eyes as the previous one, which they view
Speaker 4: as being rigged for Joe Biden. Now this says to
Speaker 4: me that, you know, if we fast forward to an
Speaker 4: election where Trump and Biden of the candidates, which obviously
Speaker 4: is not guaranteed, but let's assume that is the case,
Speaker 4: and we get a bides and winning that election, that
Speaker 4: is going to cause a lot of rancor and a big,
Speaker 4: big pool of distrust amongst these voters.
Speaker 3: They're already been set up for it.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I've seen these I've just noticed this
Speaker 1: in the past few weeks.
Speaker 3: There are a couple of little stories.
Speaker 1: There's like an elementary school near here that did masks
Speaker 1: for ten days or something. And these stories have been
Speaker 1: blowing up huge in right wing media, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's partly what those media outlets are choosing to coverage cover,
Speaker 1: and it's also partly what these voters are primed to
Speaker 1: really believe. And so they you know, they when they
Speaker 1: see that story, it fits into their mental pattern of, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what happened last time, is what's going to
Speaker 1: happen again? You know, I thought, not only in terms
Speaker 1: of jeez, we saw what happened last time, A majority
Speaker 1: of Republicans thought the election was RAI its catastrophe on
Speaker 1: January sixth, and it was, you know, a genuine sort
Speaker 1: of threat to the core of democracy here. But if
Speaker 1: we have that happen again, obviously that's a scary scenario.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I thought about, though, is doesn't
Speaker 1: this end up being sort of self defeating for Trump?
Speaker 1: If your voters think it's going to be rigged anyway,
Speaker 1: does it make it.
Speaker 3: Harder to motivate them to the polls?
Speaker 1: And we saw a little bit of this in the
Speaker 1: Georgia Senate races that happened, you know, came right on
Speaker 1: the heels of twenty twenty, and you had some influencers
Speaker 1: and I think the President's son, Don Junior going down
Speaker 1: to Georgia and basically saying like it was rigged.
Speaker 3: It was stolen.
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of analysis at the time
Speaker 1: that this really demotivated people, because what's the point of,
Speaker 1: you know, upending your day and doing some of the
Speaker 1: hurdles that it takes to show up at the polls
Speaker 1: if you don't think your vote is going to count anyway.
Speaker 1: So to me, it's sort of a double edged sword
Speaker 1: for them that they already have this idea baked in
Speaker 1: that the election is going to be rigged and their
Speaker 1: votes are going to be stolen.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and particularly when you think the Republicans do skew
Speaker 4: older and older people tend to use mail in ballots
Speaker 4: more so that is obviously a factor as well. What
Speaker 4: I would say is that local Republican party state parties
Speaker 4: have been changing their message on mail in ballots over
Speaker 4: the last year since the midterms, at least yeah, saying
Speaker 4: you know, we actually sign up, we need to do this,
Speaker 4: We need to play the Democrats at their own game.
Speaker 2: We expect that to have an impact.
Speaker 4: But what these focus groups tell us is they tell
Speaker 4: us not just what people are thinking in terms of their.
Speaker 2: Vote, but whether they might vote.
Speaker 4: And this turnout question is going to be absolutely crucial
Speaker 4: that's twenty twenty four election, because which song they can
Speaker 4: get its people out is critical to the result. And
Speaker 4: we're going to see that with the election integrity argument.
Speaker 4: But we're also going to see it on abortion and
Speaker 4: reproductive rights. Democrats will be hoping to put abortion plev
Speaker 4: sites on the ballot in various states to try and
Speaker 4: boost their turnout overall. So these focus groups also give
Speaker 4: us insight into that what's driving them. Are they actually
Speaker 4: going to turn out, what's their enthusiasm like?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to turn out more of what these individuals
Speaker 1: thought about some of the other candidates I mentioned before.
Speaker 1: I was surprised how much the pandemic came up in
Speaker 1: the context both of you know, the election being rigged
Speaker 1: again and also in the context of some of the
Speaker 1: critique of Trump. And you know, this is one of
Speaker 1: the things that Ron Desantas had been leaning into.
Speaker 3: I actually haven't been hearing him making.
Speaker 1: This case as much, but this raises for me perhaps
Speaker 1: perhaps he was on to something with that original with
Speaker 1: that original critique and contrast that he was making with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. You did something really interesting, which was you,
Speaker 1: you know, asked them all to write down what they
Speaker 1: thought about each of the candidates. Let's take a listen
Speaker 1: to some of what they had to say.
Speaker 4: If you don't know who this person is, I think
Speaker 4: you might have been living under a rock. Donald Trump
Speaker 4: a word or phrase to somewhat how you feel.
Speaker 5: I don't mean it rudely, but my word is loser.
Speaker 6: I'm confused. He's not confused. I'm confused about how I feel.
Speaker 8: Competent, competent, but I don't necessarily trust him.
Speaker 11: Competent and wavering, making America great again, unhinged, the.
Speaker 5: Vag Ramaswami refreshing ideas, but not serious.
Speaker 11: Optimistic, suspiciously fake.
Speaker 7: I don't know enough the Trump.
Speaker 11: He's well spoken, but I don't trust them. He took
Speaker 11: money from sorrows and denied it, and so I don't
Speaker 11: trust them.
Speaker 12: He looks like a and he acts like a clear politician,
Speaker 12: but he has no shot at being a president.
Speaker 5: Nicky Hayley, strong and foreign policy consensus builder.
Speaker 7: I'm afraid of completely uninformed. I don't know who she is.
Speaker 7: Kind of naive.
Speaker 3: I have to hear more about her, but.
Speaker 10: She's very liberal, liberal leaning on social issues.
Speaker 11: Rhino.
Speaker 12: She seems confident, but I feel like she's not strong
Speaker 12: enough to be our president.
Speaker 5: Mike Pattins experienced, has a good temperament for the job.
Speaker 6: More of the same.
Speaker 7: Not necessarily a bad person, but not sorry anything to offer.
Speaker 10: Sellout, confident, kind of likes to try to please everybody,
Speaker 10: and that can be an issue sometimes.
Speaker 12: Rhino ultra ultra conservative.
Speaker 4: Next on guys, Tim Scott World or phrase Tim Scott.
Speaker 5: I like him, but when I see him speak, it
Speaker 5: just seems unremarkable, like doesn't doesn't set himself apart.
Speaker 8: Strikes.
Speaker 6: He's honorable.
Speaker 7: I want to say, too new, but I don't. That's
Speaker 7: not quite what I want to say, but I can't
Speaker 7: think of any other words.
Speaker 10: He's more experience, he's well spoken.
Speaker 11: You make a great VP for Trump.
Speaker 12: I think he's too strict on reproductive rights.
Speaker 5: Chris Christy tells it like it is no.
Speaker 7: Way, Yeah, Frank, I think he's a phony, outspoken, more
Speaker 7: liberal Rhino.
Speaker 11: If he didn't have Trump's name to mention, and he
Speaker 11: won't go anywhere. Let's know, if he get Bridgegate.
Speaker 12: Seems like he's too in dated with the Jersey shore.
Speaker 2: Ron de Santis.
Speaker 5: It's a strong record of getting things accomplished.
Speaker 7: Experience, morally solid.
Speaker 8: It's got a lot going for him.
Speaker 3: My wood was experienced.
Speaker 10: Can you wait for more years?
Speaker 11: He's well spoken. I think he's hurt flowing a lot
Speaker 11: of ways too, but he's well spoken. He's a takes
Speaker 11: charge guy.
Speaker 12: He certainly can talk very well. But he's done some
Speaker 12: bad things for Florida that has directly heard, you know,
Speaker 12: the elderly as well as some of the families down there.
Speaker 3: There's so much to dig into there. Let's actually talk
Speaker 3: first about.
Speaker 1: Trump, who, of course, is you know, the elephant in
Speaker 1: literally every room in this entire country. I feel the
Speaker 1: critique of him was lacking in competence, but then there
Speaker 1: was obviously a lot of strong sentiment in favor of
Speaker 1: him as well.
Speaker 4: There was and people who liked him to pick up
Speaker 4: on the fact that, Okay, he might not always be
Speaker 4: the most presidential. He might say things that perhaps he
Speaker 4: shouldn't already, might come down and tweet things or whatever else.
Speaker 4: But that was funny to them. They like that, you know,
Speaker 4: this is not going to be the thing that ruins
Speaker 4: Trump with them. Yeah, to be honest, I thought that
Speaker 4: those three at the back were locked in for Trump.
Speaker 4: They're going to vote for him at the primary. That's
Speaker 4: very hard for the way there's people in the middle
Speaker 4: of the key.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, absolutely agree. You know, it was interesting
Speaker 2: to see them on Nikki Haley, that one woman she's like,
Speaker 2: I don't even Yeah, yeah, it's worth saying.
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, no candidate here has not
Speaker 4: only had not had a breakthrough moment, but also no
Speaker 4: one's had a New Hampshire moment. No one was sort
Speaker 4: of saying, oh, they've turned up to a lot of events,
Speaker 4: They've done a lot, and you know, that's bad news
Speaker 4: for candidates like Niki Haley and Viveke Ramaswami, who spent
Speaker 4: a lot of time in New Hampshire.
Speaker 2: They weren't. They weren't noticing that.
Speaker 1: I think actually the comments about the Vike were some
Speaker 1: of the most critical.
Speaker 3: You had some people who said.
Speaker 1: You know, I like him, he seems he seems pretty good.
Speaker 1: But then they would flow like maybe he could be
Speaker 1: Trump's vice president. But some of the negative critiques of
Speaker 1: him were also interesting. They found him, they found he
Speaker 1: came across politiciany and also like they didn't trust him.
Speaker 1: There was some skepticism of him that clearly existed in
Speaker 1: this group, even among people that you know that you
Speaker 1: might think had a favorable impression of him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it seems that the vake Ramaswami. You know,
Speaker 4: we did a poll after the first debate which lead
Speaker 4: breaking points covered and vike Ramaswami came to top on
Speaker 4: that pole. But he does not seem to have converted
Speaker 4: that debate performance into sort of solid support. We've seen
Speaker 4: that in the polls. He had a boost before the debate,
Speaker 4: but he hasn't really had a boost in the numbers
Speaker 4: since the debate. And it seems like actually his manner
Speaker 4: and his style on that debate, even though people like
Speaker 4: what he was saying, seems to have rubbed off a
Speaker 4: bit negatively on some of these people. Now, big caveat.
Speaker 4: It's only one focus group, you know, there's lots of
Speaker 4: time to go. But certainly this is not someone who
Speaker 4: you know, got a clean sweep and got a lot
Speaker 4: of momentum from that debate. Perhaps somewhat predicting he might.
Speaker 1: There were two people who got less negative comments than
Speaker 1: what I was actually expecting, and that was Mike Pence
Speaker 1: and Chris Christy. Chris Christy, even some of the people
Speaker 1: who were like, you know, sort of Trump curious or
Speaker 1: Trump supporters were described him as like he tells it
Speaker 1: like it is.
Speaker 3: You know, he's frank.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was also he's a rhino, and there
Speaker 1: was that sentiment there as well. But I actually expected
Speaker 1: basically everyone in the group to be like, he's a
Speaker 1: rhino and I don't like him, But there was this
Speaker 1: sense of like, oh, he's brash, he tells it like
Speaker 1: it is. There was more of that in the group
Speaker 1: than I expected. The other one was, as I mentioned
Speaker 1: Mike Pence, where because there's been obviously January sixth year
Speaker 1: of people running around saying wanted to hang him. He
Speaker 1: has now at this point become more outspoken about Trump
Speaker 1: and about Trump's governance and you know, just gave this
Speaker 1: big speech really contrasting his vision with Trump's vision, etc.
Speaker 2: Etc.
Speaker 1: I thought there would be more negative sentiment towards him,
Speaker 1: and again there was some of that. You know, he
Speaker 1: was described as a sellout. The one gentleman who's clearly
Speaker 1: like very strong Trump supporter called a lot of these
Speaker 1: folks rhinos, but Mike Pencil was one of the ones
Speaker 1: who got the rhino label. But you also heard people saying, oh,
Speaker 1: he's experienced, you know, they felt like.
Speaker 3: He was a good person.
Speaker 1: They just disagreed with some of the values in some
Speaker 1: of the direction that he wanted to go in. So
Speaker 1: I was I was actually surprised it wasn't more sort
Speaker 1: of vicious and negative on Mike Pence.
Speaker 4: This is the perennial burden of doing these focus greens
Speaker 4: is saying, never, never overestimate how cludin people are. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because you know, people are not following the contours of
Speaker 4: this like we do. You know, they're not following the
Speaker 4: ups and downs of the race. And to some people,
Speaker 4: they see Mike pens of that debate and they think, oh,
Speaker 4: he came across quite strong. He came across quite principle,
Speaker 4: and they quite like that. It's come off a little
Speaker 4: bit in the numbers now, but in some of the
Speaker 4: early primary polls of this of this cycle, we saw
Speaker 4: quite a large chunk of Trump voters were saying that
Speaker 4: Mike Pence was their second choice.
Speaker 2: And that's still the existence he was a vice president. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the last one for you to weigh
Speaker 1: in on is actually two of them, so Tim Scott
Speaker 1: and Ronda Santis. People didn't have really strong views on
Speaker 1: Tim Scott. There was a sense again of sort of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's fine, but maybe needs some experience. He seems honorable,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure. Ronda Santis actually had a pretty
Speaker 1: positive reception. You know, the one gentleman who is very
Speaker 1: hard Trump and called almost everybody else a rhino, he
Speaker 1: didn't say that about Ronda Santis, even though Trump has
Speaker 1: been obviously aggressively going against Ronda Sanctimonius to beat ball
Speaker 1: Ron whatever the latest nickname of the day is. He
Speaker 1: said that he sees him as well spoken and kind
Speaker 1: of a take charge guy. And so across this group,
Speaker 1: with the exception of the one woman who's the Doug
Speaker 1: Burghram supporter, there seemed to be pretty positive sentiments towards
Speaker 1: him presenting possibly an opera. I mean, if he were
Speaker 1: to consolidate some of that and consolidate the people who
Speaker 1: are like I'm not sure about Trump, consolidate some of
Speaker 1: the people who are definitely anti Trump.
Speaker 3: Then he would have a shot.
Speaker 1: I think, as Sagara was pointing out before the challenge
Speaker 1: in doing that is that people's reasons why they don't
Speaker 1: want Trump again are so different and so various that
Speaker 1: it makes it really hard to have one cohesive message
Speaker 1: that would bring all of those individuals together.
Speaker 4: It does, and I think Ron de Santis and Tim
Speaker 4: Scott will now be thinking, we need to have a moment.
Speaker 4: It's not good enough for Tim Scott to have a
Speaker 4: solid debate, it's not good enough for Ron Santas to
Speaker 4: have a solid debate. They need to start really carving
Speaker 4: them out as the clear opponents and challenges, and they
Speaker 4: need to do that quite quickly now that there is time.
Speaker 4: But look at what happened in twenty sixteen. You know,
Speaker 4: you have Iowa, you have New Hampshire, you have South Carolina,
Speaker 4: and then it's not long until you're into Super Tuesday. Now,
Speaker 4: if there's still a fractured field by then Trump mops up.
Speaker 2: He gets it.
Speaker 4: But I mean, if I was advising, you know, one
Speaker 4: of these candidates, so it was Tim Scott, Rondo Santa's,
Speaker 4: you know, how do you break through? Well, clearly they
Speaker 4: need to have a big sort of presence on the
Speaker 4: debate stage, but it might also be worth thinking for them,
Speaker 4: what the sort of policy issue that they can really
Speaker 4: make a splash with. And one of the things that
Speaker 4: really united this group quite different perhaps and sort of
Speaker 4: what we might expect Trump supporters to be like, is
Speaker 4: that they were very, very keen to see the federal
Speaker 4: government become a lot smaller. They were keen to see
Speaker 4: spending cart they were keen to see the government step
Speaker 4: back from from their lives. Now, if DeSantis or Tim
Speaker 4: Scott could come up with a really punchy economic policy,
Speaker 4: don't quite know what that is. Perhaps there's a flat
Speaker 4: rate tax, perhaps it's something that really appeals to those
Speaker 4: sort of small state Republicans, then you could see them
Speaker 4: start to break through a little.
Speaker 2: It really makes sense in the live for your dire state.
Speaker 2: I'm curious about how it would look like, you know,
Speaker 2: on a national level. I think one of my takeaways
Speaker 2: was with DeSantis is the COVID critique. For some reason,
Speaker 2: he has that critique of Trump from the very beginning,
Speaker 2: criticized warp Speed, criticized Mount Fauci. But not a single
Speaker 2: one of those people was like, yeah, but that's why
Speaker 2: I'm supporting dessantas the one Desanters guy didn't even cite COVID.
Speaker 2: The other people were not. They were like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: kind of agree with the critique, but they're not immediately
Speaker 2: saying his name. And if he hasn't, wont him over
Speaker 2: at this point, I'm like, man, that's kind I'm just curious,
Speaker 2: you know, what could possibly we had those two undecided ladies,
Speaker 2: both of them are very concerned about COVID, but none
Speaker 2: of them they're like, yeah, I'm considering, you know, but
Speaker 2: he still has not been able to win that over.
Speaker 2: So I actually a bit of a red flag, you know,
Speaker 2: he needs consolidate that if to the extent that that's
Speaker 2: a large group in there. But I'm just not sure
Speaker 2: given the amount of the disparate kind of concerns about
Speaker 2: Trump are just so all over the map from right
Speaker 2: to left. I don't know if a single candidate can
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 4: Maybe the big moment comes if Trump attends one of
Speaker 4: the debates, right, yeah, somebody can pit themselves as the
Speaker 4: sort of andi Trump candidate, But who also appeals to
Speaker 4: that key group in the middle. And I think, you know,
Speaker 4: to listeners, I think i'd say the key thing to
Speaker 4: take away from this focus group is that group in
Speaker 4: the middle of these Trump agnostics.
Speaker 2: You saw a couple of them there.
Speaker 4: If they can be one round, then it's possible that
Speaker 4: Trump's lead could fray. But look, there's no doubt based
Speaker 4: on this Trump is the clear front.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very true.
Speaker 1: The last thing I'll say, we're going to have, guys,
Speaker 1: some of the more issues specific questions and some of
Speaker 1: the clips from that, you know, on abortion in Ukraine
Speaker 1: and other things later in the weeks that we're going
Speaker 1: to have some of that as well, just as a preview.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we've got a lot more, don't worry.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was curious from your perspective because
Speaker 1: you're saying, you know, they're interested in smaller government, they're
Speaker 1: interested in, you know, the pandemic. They have these things
Speaker 1: that they raise, but when they're actually talking about the
Speaker 1: candidates and how they feel about them and why they're
Speaker 1: supporting them, it's very little that's issue specific. It's much
Speaker 1: more seems to be about personal characteristics. So what was
Speaker 1: your sense in the room of how much these is
Speaker 1: it the vibes, is it the like, you know, the
Speaker 1: personality contest or do you think it comes down more
Speaker 1: to like, here's my top issues, here's how prioritizing them I.
Speaker 4: Think come a general election, that matters a little bit more,
Speaker 4: and I could certainly it was interesting when they were
Speaker 4: talking about things like the economy and abortion, they were
Speaker 4: talking about it not in reference to different Republican candidates
Speaker 4: but against Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 4: So I do think that matters later, but at this stage,
Speaker 4: I think one of the problems is for anyone trying
Speaker 4: to differentiate on this. We've seen, you know, Nikki Haley,
Speaker 4: for example, take a different position on social security with
Speaker 4: see Mike Pence take a different position on abortion. The
Speaker 4: problem of that sort of approach is that these voters
Speaker 4: sort of assume most Republican candidates are probably on the
Speaker 4: same side on these issues. They sort of instinctively trust
Speaker 4: a lot of them to be so, and that makes
Speaker 4: it hard to differentiate. So I think it is personality.
Speaker 4: US polsters call it brand. You know, it's the brand
Speaker 4: of these candidates. You know, in the same way you
Speaker 4: might go to your favorite you know, chocolate bar provider
Speaker 4: or your favorite you know, telecoms provider. It's the candidate
Speaker 4: and how they come across. Are they competent, are they good?
Speaker 4: Are they reliable? Are they strong? Will they stand up
Speaker 4: for you? And that is, policy matters as a flag
Speaker 4: for that, but it's also so much more about can
Speaker 4: they convince the room, can they persuade them?
Speaker 2: It's personal, characteristic and great point two about how it
Speaker 2: matters also in terms of how they see the other
Speaker 2: candidate and whether they'll get some of what they want,
Speaker 2: you know, Visa VI Joe Biden. So anyway, James, you
Speaker 2: did fantastic job, you really did. Hopefully we'll see you again.
Speaker 2: Great w and we're excited to continue to bring everybody
Speaker 2: all of this work that we've done in conjunction with
Speaker 2: Jail Partners. You guys do amazing work. As we said,
Speaker 2: we've cited previous polls and other things, and glad we
Speaker 2: got to work together.
Speaker 1: I don't know, people remember we showed before these word
Speaker 1: clouds that you guys did of.
Speaker 2: All the cod its.
Speaker 1: I mean, they were really interesting because again it's like
Speaker 1: you can pull on these issues and people all, I
Speaker 1: support this on Ukraine, I support that on abortion, but
Speaker 1: like their gut check of when I hear this Canada's name,
Speaker 1: what's the first thing that comes to mind? That's in
Speaker 1: some ways the most revealing material. So that's why we're
Speaker 1: so excited to work with you guys, and you came through.
Speaker 3: This was phenomenal.
Speaker 2: Thank thank you so much. Gus appreciate it very much,
Speaker 2: and we will continue on with the rest of the show. Now,
Speaker 2: last week we brought you the news that President Zelenski
Speaker 2: had fired the Defense Minister over corruption. We're apparently allowed
Speaker 2: to talk about corruption in Ukraine now, and the New
Speaker 2: York Times, because they've gotten their marching orders now that
Speaker 2: they're allowed to talk about it, are giving us an
Speaker 2: even better insight into what this looks like. It's effectively
Speaker 2: like the plot of the War Dogs movie or of
Speaker 2: Lord of War. Crazy mercenaries who are very unscrewed are
Speaker 2: getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the US government
Speaker 2: on their ability to procure weapons and pump them into
Speaker 2: the Ukraine conflict. Let's put this up there on the screen.
Speaker 2: This is just one view. Remember this is just one
Speaker 2: what twenty something months or so into the conflict. They
Speaker 2: look at Florida based arms contractor. His name is Mark Morales.
Speaker 2: He has regaled people with the stories on his new
Speaker 2: ten million dollar yacht called trigger Happy Crystal that manages
Speaker 2: his company's nine digit portfolio. Said portfolio includes like hundreds
Speaker 2: of millions of dollars that are given to mister Morales.
Speaker 2: They have awarded his company approximately one billion dollars in contracts,
Speaker 2: mostly for ammunition. Record show he has built roughly two
Speaker 2: hundred million dollar side business just selling to the Ukrainians directly.
Speaker 2: He employs multiple Ukrainian officials, some of whom are pictured there,
Speaker 2: one of them literally a former Defense ministry advisor. I mean,
Speaker 2: why would you employ such a person right whenever you're
Speaker 2: trying to sell weapons to the government. But the thing
Speaker 2: I love about mister Morales is that quote. The Justice
Speaker 2: Department indicted him in two thousand and nine on conspiracy
Speaker 2: of money laundering charges after it said he was caught
Speaker 2: on tape discussing methods for paying bribes to foreign officials.
Speaker 2: Quote thissally said, you just gotta be smarter than the government,
Speaker 2: mister Morales said on one recording. Ultimately, FBI agents badly
Speaker 2: botched the case and prosecutors had to drop charges. So
Speaker 2: he's not been convicted. He stands innocent of the charges
Speaker 2: in the eyes of the law. But what they really
Speaker 2: go into with mister Morales, and again we're using him
Speaker 2: just as a stand in for how many there's probably
Speaker 2: dozens of these types of guys who are operating inside
Speaker 2: of Ukraine. Is these guys were instrumental in the Syria
Speaker 2: and Afghan conflict.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: They have deep and shady ties for ammo dealers all
Speaker 2: across the world. They can snap their fingers and they
Speaker 2: can get a plane full of ammunition. And the Pentagon
Speaker 2: was like, Hey, the guy can get the job done,
Speaker 2: So we're just gonna pump money, you know, into his
Speaker 2: pockets and doesn't really matter where it's coming from, or
Speaker 2: what's going on, or where this money is doing or
Speaker 2: who exactly he's paying inside of the country. And it's
Speaker 2: just so obvious. I mean, one of the reasons they
Speaker 2: tried to indict him in two thousand and nine is
Speaker 2: because that directly violates the Foreign and Corrupt Practices Act
Speaker 2: that the United States government has in place, in which
Speaker 2: US businesses are not supposed to be bribing foreign officials
Speaker 2: or engage in any of this corruption to procure business.
Speaker 2: And that specifically would be a violation of business violation
Speaker 2: in terms of that revenue. But when that revenue is
Speaker 2: directly based on the government itself, they're obviously looking the
Speaker 2: other way. So I thought This was just a perfect
Speaker 2: example of you know, now it's twenty something months into
Speaker 2: the conflict, the Biden administration is on the verge of
Speaker 2: sending long range missiles to Ukraine, of which they directly
Speaker 2: had said before it would escalate the conflict. And we
Speaker 2: don't have enough said missiles because if we ever get
Speaker 2: into a conflict, we may need them. Of course I've
Speaker 2: said this before on a long enough timeline, Ukraine always
Speaker 2: get what it wants. But you know, if people like
Speaker 2: mister Morales, who are the go tos between these it's
Speaker 2: not just a direct arms transfers. We take the money,
Speaker 2: we give it to people like him. He gets it
Speaker 2: from god knows where, and then he gives it to Ukraine.
Speaker 2: And he's making a very tidy little profit enough to
Speaker 2: get a ten million dollar yacht in Florida. Must be nice.
Speaker 2: It's nice life. He's got down.
Speaker 1: He's gotten a billion dollars in contracts from the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: I think this story, first of all, some of the
Speaker 1: details here. There are so many Yize details in this,
Speaker 1: starting with you know, the image of him on his
Speaker 1: quote unquote trigger happy yacht and partying with these Ukrainian
Speaker 1: officials and current members of the Ukrainian military that he
Speaker 1: also employs in order to help him get the meetings
Speaker 1: with the Ukrainian government that he wants to secure further contracts.
Speaker 1: So he's not only doing business with the Pentagon. You know,
Speaker 1: the Pentagon is hiring him to procure and supply certain
Speaker 1: weapons and in particular ammunition, but he's also getting money
Speaker 1: directly from the Ukrainian government. He is walking right up
Speaker 1: to the line of directly bribing foreign officials.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's just no other way of describing this.
Speaker 1: One of the people that he employs is a sergeant
Speaker 1: in the Ukrainian military. He has done a lot too,
Speaker 1: So he pays this man, and then this man gets
Speaker 1: him these meetings with foreign government Offirato.
Speaker 3: So you tell me what that is.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, I think it's also important, outside of the details
Speaker 1: of this particular individual, that people really understand the nitty
Speaker 1: gritty of how this business is done, and that they
Speaker 1: remember that this man is becoming wildly wealthy off of
Speaker 1: this horrible, tragic war, and he's not alone.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of others who are just like him.
Speaker 1: The article sort of gestures at this massive arms market
Speaker 1: that has sprung up and the amount of money obviously
Speaker 1: flowing around all of Eastern Europe, and they say that
Speaker 1: it could reshape the politics and markets in that whole
Speaker 1: region for years and years to come, even following after
Speaker 1: the war, because this is defining sort of a new
Speaker 1: group of oligarchs who are getting wildly wealthy off of this.
Speaker 1: So it's always important to remember as these wars are
Speaker 1: going on, you know, we as the public see it,
Speaker 1: and we see the tragedy of it, we see the
Speaker 1: atrocities that are being committed, we see the absolute carnage
Speaker 1: and horror of it. But it's also important to remember
Speaker 1: that there are people who have a financial incentive to
Speaker 1: keep these things going and who are turning huge profits
Speaker 1: off of this carnage and killing.
Speaker 2: My personal favorite is that it's really not his connections
Speaker 2: to the Ukrainian government. Every Tom Dick and Harry and
Speaker 2: Eastern Europe's got a connection to the corrupt Ukrainian government,
Speaker 2: he says, quote it is not his ties to the government,
Speaker 2: that is his ties to the Pentagon, which give him
Speaker 2: an unfair advantage. Quote. Arms brokers from around the world
Speaker 2: are competing for limited supply of Soviet style weapons, mostly
Speaker 2: from Eastern Europe. To sell to Ukraine. With cash pouring
Speaker 2: in from Washington, Morales can afford to pay more than
Speaker 2: his competitors do. Several Eastern European arms dealers complained they're
Speaker 2: mad they're not getting in on the bonanza. He then
Speaker 2: makes good on his American contracts, then buys even more
Speaker 2: ammunition with his profits to sell it to Ukraine directly,
Speaker 2: and in several cases early in the war, Morale US
Speaker 2: outbid rivals to buy explosive shells, for example, from a
Speaker 2: Bulgarian arms factory. All of this is again appropriated dollars
Speaker 2: from the US taxpayer to missed people like him who
Speaker 2: go out and you know, these shady factories. Nobody knows
Speaker 2: what's going on in these plays. They probably are most
Speaker 2: likely they're selling to both sides of the conflict. And
Speaker 2: this is a perfect example of a guy who's got
Speaker 2: Washington wired, knows how to gain the subcontracting business and
Speaker 2: contracting enough of a profit there if we can outbid
Speaker 2: people in there, and then you know, juice things with
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian government, so we've got a consistent supply, and
Speaker 2: longer this conflict goes on, the richer people like him
Speaker 2: are going to get and what I want to be clear,
Speaker 2: this isn't even signaling the man out because there are
Speaker 2: dozens of people like him, and frankly, he's a small
Speaker 2: fish in all of this. The people who are really
Speaker 2: cleaning up or like I said that Bulgarian arms factory,
Speaker 2: our defense contractors who are also those are the people
Speaker 2: making billions of dollars whenever they are raking that in.
Speaker 2: He's just like a player in this entire thing. One
Speaker 2: of the again I shouted out the movie Wardogs. I
Speaker 2: recommend people go and watch it because that is a
Speaker 2: great example of our government is not in control nearly
Speaker 2: as much as people think. They think we're like flying
Speaker 2: seat thirty sevens over and just dropping the weapons off. No, no, no,
Speaker 2: you know we the government doesn't do anything anymore. We
Speaker 2: subcontract out everything NASA to SpaceX and you know the
Speaker 2: Pentagon here to arms dealers. We just write a check
Speaker 2: and then we just expect said weapons to show up.
Speaker 2: And the biggest problem with this is not only quality control,
Speaker 2: but also who knows who's where are these weapons going.
Speaker 2: We've already done multiple reports here guys in Azov Nazi battalion,
Speaker 2: brand new weapons just showing up. We did previously that
Speaker 2: story about the American mercenary who had told stories about
Speaker 2: how the just brand new crates of weapons just show up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you're there, grab one. Why not? You know? And
Speaker 2: who knows? What are they dealing with it? And then
Speaker 2: also who is stopping people like Morales or any of
Speaker 2: these people inside Ukraine from taking that crate? Maybe they
Speaker 2: gave a third to the Ukrainians and they sell two
Speaker 2: thirds on the black market. That's exactly what happened in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've said this before, but the people who
Speaker 2: really want in Afghanistan bankers in Dubai, And this is
Speaker 2: a good example. Guys like him made their bones in
Speaker 2: the Syria and Afghan conflict being able to procure sketchy
Speaker 2: weapons and deliver it to the conflict zone. So why not,
Speaker 2: you know? And the amount of money laundering and other
Speaker 2: chicanery that's going on behind the scenes is just outrageous.
Speaker 2: When you see something like.
Speaker 1: This, Your subcontracting point is actually really interesting and important
Speaker 1: because what happens, whether it's the government using subcontractors or
Speaker 1: you see this like an auto industry or any other industry,
Speaker 1: when they use subcontractors, they allow that to act as
Speaker 1: an excuse to not worry too much about the mushy
Speaker 1: details about how whatever they need is getting done, and
Speaker 1: so it makes it much more difficult to have any
Speaker 1: sort of transparency, accountability, the sort of thing that you
Speaker 1: would really want inside of a democracy when it comes to.
Speaker 3: The core issues of war and peace.
Speaker 1: And by sub contracting, not just in the area of
Speaker 1: defense spending, but really across all of government, by so contracting,
Speaker 1: so many key functions out and you know, depleting the
Speaker 1: ability of our government to actually do anything itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it allows a lot of things to be swept under
Speaker 1: the rug. It allows people to look in the other
Speaker 1: direction and empower individuals like this one who was formally
Speaker 1: indicted for you know, some sketchy circumstances. Again he's guilty,
Speaker 1: so he's innocent, but you know, raises some question mark. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: allows our government to work with people like this and
Speaker 1: not look too closely at exactly what the details are,
Speaker 1: exactly what's going.
Speaker 2: On exactly right, and guess what the rest of the
Speaker 2: world they're waking up. They have a very different view
Speaker 2: of this conflict. That was especially in the air at
Speaker 2: the g twenty summit, which just happened in New Delhi,
Speaker 2: where it stunningly if you don't pay attention to the news,
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen. The language that
Speaker 2: previously had dropped a condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine
Speaker 2: was actually did not appear in the joint communicate that
Speaker 2: was released by the entire G twenty. They say quote
Speaker 2: G twenty leaders have failed to condemn the Russian invasion
Speaker 2: of Ukraine in their joint statement after both China and
Speaker 2: Russia of course rejected language that blamed Moscow for the conflict,
Speaker 2: but it really wasn't just them. The New Delhi actually
Speaker 2: summit declaration only referred to quote the war in Ukraine
Speaker 2: after a formulation of supporters in Kiev, and then also
Speaker 2: people who'd have a very different view of the conflict
Speaker 2: could not come to some sort of consensus about how
Speaker 2: things were going to refer to the conflict. The previous
Speaker 2: G twenty actually did refer to quote aggression by the
Speaker 2: Russian Federation against Ukraine, where Western diplomats and also Chinese
Speaker 2: officials did not put in the same place the blocks
Speaker 2: to stop that language from appearing, which shows you clearly
Speaker 2: things have changed in the geopolitical situation where they have
Speaker 2: enough juice, not just China and Russia, places like India,
Speaker 2: Brazil and others that have a very different view of
Speaker 2: said conflict. They even have the External Minister of Affairs
Speaker 2: of India, he said, quote it is a fact today
Speaker 2: it is a very polarizing issue. There are multiple views
Speaker 2: of this, there are spectrum of views. So I think
Speaker 2: in all fairness, it was only right to red what
Speaker 2: was the reality in the meeting rooms. The big takeaway
Speaker 2: mine from the G twenty sum in Crystal was just
Speaker 2: how far the US and Europe are moving away from
Speaker 2: the consensus of the rest of the world because you
Speaker 2: had big landmark meetings between Mody and MBS, You had
Speaker 2: meetings with the Chinese and the Russian officials. Lavrov, the
Speaker 2: Foreign Minister of Russia, actually met with Prime Minister Modi
Speaker 2: on the sidelines and they it was pumped up by
Speaker 2: the Indian government because they rely on them, of course
Speaker 2: for a portion of their oil supply. But also President
Speaker 2: Lula of Brazil appeared prominently in a photo not only
Speaker 2: with Prime Minister Modi and with President Biden, but came
Speaker 2: out directly afterwards and he said, hey, I'm hosting the
Speaker 2: G twenty next year and putin if you want to come,
Speaker 2: we're not going to arrest you as a part of
Speaker 2: the international whatever criminal court tribunal. I mean, these are
Speaker 2: not things that you do whenever you're afraid of the West,
Speaker 2: afraid of Europe are in terms of their view on
Speaker 2: Russia and Ukraine, it's what you do when you have
Speaker 2: a completely different view. You're looking out for your own interests,
Speaker 2: and you think that the war in Ukraine, while you
Speaker 2: think it's important, you think it's unjust. You know what's
Speaker 2: happening there. You're like, Okay, it's not the primacy of
Speaker 2: how I'm going to base my entire foreign policy. So
Speaker 2: Washington's decision to make everything about Ukraine, every single thing
Speaker 2: that we do, you know, alienating so many of our allies.
Speaker 2: The G twenty, to me, is a much better view
Speaker 2: of how this is going as opposed to the G seven,
Speaker 2: because the G twenty is the actual emerging economies all
Speaker 2: across Asian And it's also no surprise that President Biden
Speaker 2: right now is in Hanoi and Vietnam because he needs
Speaker 2: to shore up what's going on with our Asian alliance,
Speaker 2: and Vietnam is our number ten trading partner, like reality
Speaker 2: is beginning to hit us in terms of our obsession
Speaker 2: with this conflict.
Speaker 1: It's accelerated the realization of a multipolar world that you know,
Speaker 1: we were already heading towards, but this has helped to
Speaker 1: consolidate that new reality. And you can see it when
Speaker 1: a country like Brazil is like, no, we're not going
Speaker 1: to go along at all with.
Speaker 3: What you think, with what you say.
Speaker 1: We're not going to be ugly er mean about it,
Speaker 1: but we have a different view of this and I
Speaker 1: feel very comfortable asserting it and looking out for our
Speaker 1: own interest in this conflict.
Speaker 3: Same thing with India.
Speaker 1: You know, is interesting the news coverage of the G
Speaker 1: twenty because this is a sort of understandable given that
Speaker 1: the language last time around was a little bit stronger,
Speaker 1: and you know, they weren't able to condemn Russian aggression,
Speaker 1: which you know, I think that they should be able
Speaker 1: to do, but there was a lot of shock that
Speaker 1: that was the case. And if anything, I'm actually surprised
Speaker 1: they were able to issue any sort of joint communicate
Speaker 1: because of the size of the divisions at this point.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a big win for Moodi
Speaker 1: who's facing reelection to be able to get any sort
Speaker 1: of joint statement out From the US's side, you had
Speaker 1: Jake Sullivan, US National Security Advisor calling it a set
Speaker 1: of consequential paragraphs. They're talking about. Listen, you had to
Speaker 1: compromise some if you were going to get anything done.
Speaker 1: Some of their priorities in terms of getting grain exports,
Speaker 1: restarting the Black Sea that was discussed and you know,
Speaker 1: commitment to that was realized within this communicay, which is
Speaker 1: I think really important not just for Ukrainians but for
Speaker 1: people around the world in terms of food prices. There
Speaker 1: was another piece here that you know, there was an
Speaker 1: effort to highlight climate change and to call for reduction
Speaker 1: fossil fuels, but there was also no deadline there, so
Speaker 1: it's just sort of like meaningless words on that one.
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia obviously not going to go along with that
Speaker 1: one either. So while there while the some of the
Speaker 1: things that were not in the communicy.
Speaker 3: Really underscore the deep divisions at.
Speaker 1: This point within the G twenty and between the US
Speaker 1: and Europe and the rest of the world in general.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I'm actually surprised they were able to
Speaker 1: put anything out jointly.
Speaker 2: At this point, another important point from the G twenty
Speaker 2: Prime Minister Mode making a big show of inviting the
Speaker 2: African Union directly as a member of the G twenty.
Speaker 2: That's again, you know, acceleration. The African Union very very
Speaker 2: different of view of the conflict in Ukraine than anything
Speaker 2: else going on in the West. They have much deeper
Speaker 2: ties with China, you know, I just want to emphasize
Speaker 2: what you said. We're seeing a huge bifurcation with the
Speaker 2: rest of the world and US. Now, that doesn't mean
Speaker 2: the rest of the world agrees with each other. India
Speaker 2: and China avil sorts of rivalry. Actually, there was a
Speaker 2: lot of questions about shishing Ping and China ahead of
Speaker 2: this because of a map that the Chinese government put
Speaker 2: out which jos a border dispute. But overall, I want to,
Speaker 2: you know, just to underscore what you said, which is
Speaker 2: I actually thought there was criminal undercoverage what was going
Speaker 2: on in the G twenty, just because what was going
Speaker 2: on there and with the bricks. You know, that is
Speaker 2: clearly going to define a huge portion of geopolitical just
Speaker 2: of geopolitical not only tension, but division and evolution in
Speaker 2: the next century. As opposed to the amount of slabbeign
Speaker 2: coverage that Western based ones like G seven and others get.
Speaker 2: Our future is in Asia. I mean, like I said,
Speaker 2: anyone who can read an actual table can see where
Speaker 2: our major trading partners are, where fifty percent of the
Speaker 2: world's GDP is. And to see the divisions also between
Speaker 2: the you know, the Japanese and the South Koreans coming
Speaker 2: together at their recent Camp David summit. As opposed to
Speaker 2: how much attention the administration paced in Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine,
Speaker 2: you think it's the most important thing going on in
Speaker 2: the world. I thought it was a very interesting, you
Speaker 2: know thing, that this even happened. And to see that
Speaker 2: again going to Brazil and Putin will be showing up
Speaker 2: most likely and facing some of the biggest critics on
Speaker 2: the world stage in a year from now. What a
Speaker 2: crazy development. I mean, think about that. President Biden well
Speaker 2: be running for reelection a year from now. I guess
Speaker 2: if he's around and he's you see Putin face to face,
Speaker 2: which that's what led to that famous moment. I think
Speaker 2: it was at the G eight, or maybe it would
Speaker 2: be in the G twenty when Obama and Putin had
Speaker 2: the sideline conversation. So you never know how these things
Speaker 2: are going to go. It's going to be interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, indeed, we got some big domestic news that's going
Speaker 1: to be excited about.
Speaker 2: Here, so I have you know. It's just one of
Speaker 2: those where a major failure for small D democracy. Nancy Pelosi,
Speaker 2: Representative California San Francisco, has decided she will be running
Speaker 2: for reelection. The fact that she's running for reelection at
Speaker 2: all is stunning. She's eighty three years old, but the
Speaker 2: reasons for why she's running for reelection are very telling
Speaker 2: in what she's chosen to emphasize. Let's take a listen.
Speaker 13: Just signed now that in light of the values Fransisco,
Speaker 13: where she had always been ground to promote, that she
Speaker 13: may have made decision to seek reelection. I think it's
Speaker 13: important for me to use my knowledge of the Congress,
Speaker 13: my knowledge of the city, my concern about the country
Speaker 13: for the benefit of my constituent. So it was really
Speaker 13: more respons about responsibility.
Speaker 2: Did you ever think about not running, Well, you always do.
Speaker 13: I mean for thirty six years I've running. You always
Speaker 13: have to measure what the value is of your contribution
Speaker 13: in something like this, and I never thought I'd stay
Speaker 13: as long as I did.
Speaker 2: I never thought I'd stay as long as I did,
Speaker 2: but I'm staying. Anyways, Let's go to put this up there,
Speaker 2: and Nancy Pelosi decides that she will be running for
Speaker 2: reelection in twenty twenty four, dismissing talk of retirement at
Speaker 2: age eighty three. I mean, this is just someone who
Speaker 2: is power hungry, and I think their entire identity is
Speaker 2: wrapped up in their holding office. And at this point,
Speaker 2: you know, even though she's not the speaker, she's like
Speaker 2: still the de facto leader of the Democratic Party. She
Speaker 2: doesn't want to give it up, Crystal. And you know
Speaker 2: after the coup that she's pulled off by keeping Feinstein
Speaker 2: in office, rigging the California Democratic primary process so that
Speaker 2: she'll never face an opponent opponent so that her chosen
Speaker 2: Adam Schiff will very likely be able to get them
Speaker 2: or at least contest the nomination. Why should she, I mean,
Speaker 2: she's one of those who's like, yeah, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: And she's impervious to criticism about the stock trading, She's
Speaker 2: impervious to criticism about her age. She pulls the feminism
Speaker 2: card anytime you even try and talk about it as
Speaker 2: if it's a feminist issue that people are way too
Speaker 2: old in Congress. I mean, we she just should not
Speaker 2: dismiss the idea that it's disgraceful that people who are
Speaker 2: this old continue to just hold onto power and not
Speaker 2: allow any new generation. And my personal favorite was a
Speaker 2: clip where she was defending like the state of San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Someone was like, hey, how's san Francisco done under She's like,
Speaker 2: you're running for Sanford Goes not doing very well right now.
Speaker 2: She's like, no, that's an isolated local issue. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: why are you doing anything about it?
Speaker 8: Then?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's your whole ostensible reason for running. So she
Speaker 2: mentions Trump, she dismisses talk, and she says, san Francisco
Speaker 2: is fine. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I feel like these people feel like they're so core
Speaker 1: to like that they just, I don't know, they just
Speaker 1: can't give it up. You know, it's become so central
Speaker 1: to their own personal identity. They love the power, they
Speaker 1: love like the spectacle and the yes men and women
Speaker 1: around them, and they just never let go of their grip,
Speaker 1: grasping grip on whatever power they have. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is consequential Obviously it's consequential for people who live
Speaker 1: in her district. But obviously Nancy Pelosi is much more
Speaker 1: than just one member of Congress representing one district. She
Speaker 1: is a national figure, and as long as she remains
Speaker 1: in Congress, and probably even if she did retire, you
Speaker 1: can be assured that as much as Sachem Jeffrey's name
Speaker 1: maybe at the front of the cock is, if you
Speaker 1: know who was really running the show there. And so
Speaker 1: I just think it continues point to an extraordinary failure
Speaker 1: at the core of our democracy that these people feel
Speaker 1: like they can hang on forever and ever, well into
Speaker 1: their eighties with Diane Feinstein, my got into her nineties
Speaker 1: and never face real accountability and never be even pushed
Speaker 1: aside for a new generation, hopefully that's not just a
Speaker 1: repeat of the old generation that maybe has some different
Speaker 1: ideas and perspectives to offer at least open it up
Speaker 1: to a real democratic process. So I just think it's
Speaker 1: a sign of more core wrought at how unrepresentative are
Speaker 1: so called democracy has truly become.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 2: that she continues to say is she even used the
Speaker 2: Trump boogeyman in one interview that she gave. She was like, well,
Speaker 2: if Trump comes back, like we're going to need somebody
Speaker 2: to stand up to him. It's like, well, what are
Speaker 2: you going to do? How has that gone? I mean
Speaker 2: exactly how did it go for you?
Speaker 1: What makes you think that you did such an effective
Speaker 1: job at that The man almost won last time around.
Speaker 1: It's only because of his own absolute insanity and stupidity
Speaker 1: that he didn't. He's hide with Biden right now while
Speaker 1: he's facing freaking ninety one different charges, and so you're
Speaker 1: really the bulwark against Trump and the fascists. Like, give
Speaker 1: me a freaking break. Where is any evidence that any
Speaker 1: of the approach you've taken to this man has been
Speaker 1: successful whatsoever?
Speaker 2: And you know, the thing is is that this fake
Speaker 2: turnover leadership I think is even worse almost than an
Speaker 2: out retirement as you were talking about with yeah, hakem Jefferies,
Speaker 2: because I mean, even standing standy Homer is like eighty
Speaker 2: four years old.
Speaker 3: He's the same age as her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, same age. Jim Clyburn, I know, is also getting
Speaker 2: up there. Everyone is allegedly stepping down from their leadership roles,
Speaker 2: but they're not retiring. And it's like when you don't
Speaker 2: retire then clearly like you're still running the show behind
Speaker 2: the scenes. And to see this running for reelection, to
Speaker 2: remain the main face of the party. She's still the
Speaker 2: number one fund raising draw which is insane to me.
Speaker 2: But it shows you a lot about Democratic downers and
Speaker 2: to still be like pulling strings behind the scene with Feinstein.
Speaker 2: You know, we can't emphasize enough just how much of
Speaker 2: a failure it really is. And also the inability to
Speaker 2: pass the torch and just let it. You know, who
Speaker 2: knows how it will play out. They came from the generation,
Speaker 2: all of these people from when actually there was a
Speaker 2: huge injection of new blood in the Democratic Party. They're
Speaker 2: called the Watergate babies. A lot of people were swept
Speaker 2: into the office with a disgust of the Republican Party
Speaker 2: and the institutional decline after Watergate. And it's just funny
Speaker 2: because they've effectively created their own type of situation where
Speaker 2: their inability to let go of power has led to
Speaker 2: the same sort of cynicism which propelled them to office
Speaker 2: in the first place. But they never wanted to learn
Speaker 2: that lesson. They just keep droning on and on. I
Speaker 2: was talking with someone recently and I think what they
Speaker 2: said is like, look, Congress is a great place to
Speaker 2: be old. You have a mandatory staff, You get free flights,
Speaker 2: you know, all around the country, no matter where you
Speaker 2: want to go, everyone opens a door for you. You
Speaker 2: only work three days a week. You don't have to
Speaker 2: work that hard. If you don't want to, people call.
Speaker 2: Everyone has to call you, mammer sir. You'll always get
Speaker 2: you know, priority boarding on an aircraft. You'll always get
Speaker 2: a dinner reservation, you get free booze, you get free
Speaker 2: free dinners. What's not to love. It's effectively a great
Speaker 2: retirement home, except we all pay for it, and they're
Speaker 2: supposed to be working for us. Yeah, that's a crazy part.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I looked it up.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 3: Hoyer's eighty four. Yea, Clyburns eighty three, Pelosis eighty three.
Speaker 3: This is nuts completely.
Speaker 2: The President's eighty one. He's a spring chicken.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 1: This came up a lot in the focus group, and
Speaker 1: we're going to show you some of this. But they
Speaker 1: were very concerned about and they brought up McConnell, and
Speaker 1: they brought up fine set. Of course, they brought up Biden,
Speaker 1: but they see this also on the you know, this
Speaker 1: is a group of Republicans in New Hampshire. They saw
Speaker 1: this also as a really core issue. Now, it was
Speaker 1: interesting because they differed on how you deal with it.
Speaker 1: There was some some people were like I definitely want
Speaker 1: term limits or I definitely want angelamits, and who were like,
Speaker 1: I don't know about that, and maybe we should have
Speaker 1: a cognitive ability test. So there was a lot of
Speaker 1: ideas about Okay, how do we actually deal with this
Speaker 1: core failure? But I think there is just wide spread
Speaker 1: this discussed with the way that these people, whether they're
Speaker 1: Republicans or Democrats, hang on to power long after the
Speaker 1: public really want in there.
Speaker 2: Absolutely right, all.
Speaker 1: Right, we've got some big developments this morning in terms
Speaker 1: of what happened on that faithful day when JFK was assassinated.
Speaker 1: Now a little bit of context just for people to remember.
Speaker 1: Core to the idea put forward by the Warren Commission
Speaker 1: that led to the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald was
Speaker 1: the lone gunman, was this idea of a pristine or
Speaker 1: magic bullet which was discovered, which supposedly, did you know
Speaker 1: all the damage to JFK, but also to the governor
Speaker 1: that was there with him, and the bullet itself looked impeccable,
Speaker 1: like it hadn't done anything at all. So this was
Speaker 1: always one of the points that people were like.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but to be on the stretcher.
Speaker 1: Yes, on a stretcher, which becomes incredibly relevant. But to
Speaker 1: make that whole theory work, they had to have this
Speaker 1: bullet doing things that no bullet.
Speaker 3: Has ever done before. Okay, that's the backstory.
Speaker 1: So now we have one Secret Service agents who was
Speaker 1: actually charged with protecting Jackie Kennedy.
Speaker 3: He has decided to tell.
Speaker 1: His story and he claims, let's put this up on
Speaker 1: the screen from Vanity Fair. He claims he was actually
Speaker 1: the person who found that bullet, and he found it
Speaker 1: in Kennedy's limo, and the placement of where he found
Speaker 1: it is incredibly important because it would make no sense
Speaker 1: for that bullet to be in that location if it
Speaker 1: actually did all those things that the Warrant Commission claimed
Speaker 1: that it did. Furthermore, part of what allowed them to
Speaker 1: draw that conclusion was there were two stretchers, right. There
Speaker 1: was one stretcher that had Governor Connolly, who was injured
Speaker 1: but not killed in the shooting, and one stretcher that
Speaker 1: had JFK. This secret Service agent claims that he put
Speaker 1: the bullet at the hospital because he wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that they had it and it was an important
Speaker 1: piece of evidence. But he himself health is shocked and
Speaker 1: horrified and suffered clearly with a lot of PTSD, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But he decides to put this bullet, he says, on
Speaker 1: Kennedy's stretcher. Now for it to make sense that this
Speaker 1: bullet did all the things they said it did, it
Speaker 1: needed to have been instead with Governor Connolly's body. So
Speaker 1: I know this can sound really like in the weeds,
Speaker 1: but this one bullet, like the Warren Commission, really hung
Speaker 1: their entire conclusions on what happened with this one bullet.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that you now have a secret
Speaker 1: Service agent who you know, for a variety of reasons,
Speaker 1: mostly his own trauma, didn't want to speak out before,
Speaker 1: didn't actually dig into the Warren Commission report, didn't dig
Speaker 1: in until recently until any of the you know, the
Speaker 1: other alternative explanations that are out there for what might
Speaker 1: have actually happened on this day. He has decided here
Speaker 1: now while he's probably close to the end of his
Speaker 1: life to come out and tell this story. So he
Speaker 1: says that he spotted this bullet resting on the top
Speaker 1: of the back seat, He picked it up, put it
Speaker 1: in his pocket, brought it into the hospital. Then upon
Speaker 1: entering trauma room number one at that stage, he was
Speaker 1: the only non medical person in the room besides Missus Kennedy.
Speaker 1: He insists he placed the bullet on a white cotton
Speaker 1: blanket on the President's stretcher. And this vanity, Fairs says,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, may upend key conclusions of the
Speaker 1: Warren Commission, the body created by President Lyndon Johnson to
Speaker 1: investigate the assassination. And part of why, Sagary, you have
Speaker 1: to have this one bullet doing so many things is
Speaker 1: because the type of gun that Lee Harvey os while
Speaker 1: supposedly used like there was no way he could have
Speaker 1: himself fired sufficient rounds in a short period, is like
Speaker 1: two seconds that he would have had to fire sufficient rounds,
Speaker 1: And witnesses on the scene said, many of them said
Speaker 1: they heard more rounds than what the official conclusion in
Speaker 1: the report was. So you can see the way they
Speaker 1: sort of like cobbled things together to try to make
Speaker 1: this theory work and to rule out the possibility of
Speaker 1: any other gunman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the magic bullet theory was invented by Arlen Spector.
Speaker 2: It was like the Golden bow tie on the Warren
Speaker 2: Commission to be able to explain how exactly the amount
Speaker 2: of bullets that were technically fired possibly or thought to
Speaker 2: be by Lee Harvey Os while he was able to
Speaker 2: inflict the damage that it had been. We had the
Speaker 2: pristine billet which found on the stretcher. The important thing
Speaker 2: from mister Landis's thing is, I think it's not just trum.
Speaker 2: I think he was obviously he was afraid. I mean
Speaker 2: that's really what comes through. If you go through and
Speaker 2: you read Tom O'Neil's book Chaos, and you have all
Speaker 2: these people who are involved in Manson. It's clearly the
Speaker 2: CIA op gone terribly wrong. And many of the cops
Speaker 2: and others who are involved in that, even decades later,
Speaker 2: they're terrified to be able to speak to Tom O'Neil
Speaker 2: whenever he wrote that book. Well, it's the same thing
Speaker 2: here with many of these secret service agents. And don't forget,
Speaker 2: I mean these guys were close up. They probably had blood,
Speaker 2: you know, smeared all over their clothes, and they were
Speaker 2: witnessed to a horrific murder and then probably put through
Speaker 2: the ringer and pressure from the FBI and investigative sources.
Speaker 2: Another thing that he points to is that the scene
Speaker 2: was not secured at all. It's very important really where
Speaker 2: he says that he did not He was very concerned
Speaker 2: about how the scene was not secured properly, about how
Speaker 2: law enforcement was handling the evidence that was around. And look,
Speaker 2: what are we to make of what he says, Like
Speaker 2: you said it cast out on the original magic bullet
Speaker 2: theory itself, which never made any goddamn sense. But really,
Speaker 2: what it is is the only doubt we could say
Speaker 2: as well, people's memories, you know, they age over time. Like,
Speaker 2: who knows if he's telling the truth or not. I'm
Speaker 2: inclined to believe him, just because there's never been any
Speaker 2: like real scrap of evidence for the magic bull of
Speaker 2: theory in the first place, and because so much of
Speaker 2: the processing of the scene, of the evidence and all
Speaker 2: that was so obviously manipulated by the FBI. I recommend
Speaker 2: Oliver Stones, you know, nearly four hour docu series on
Speaker 2: this that just came out. I think it came out
Speaker 2: last year or something like that. It was on showtime.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure where it's available now. He goes through
Speaker 2: this in exhaustive detail, like in terms of the chain
Speaker 2: of custody, the autopsy photos, some of the manipulation that
Speaker 2: was going on there, the people who were actually at
Speaker 2: the book depository, whether they saw Lee Harvey Oswald whenever
Speaker 2: they should have seen Lee Harvey Oswell. I mean, just
Speaker 2: to me, this is so odd. There's no way that
Speaker 2: the Warren Commission, us the Warren Commission's narrative of what
Speaker 2: happened makes any sense.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Zero. And I find it, you know, important that we're
Speaker 2: also talking about it on nine to eleven, of course,
Speaker 2: because it's like it's very important to keep up on
Speaker 2: all of these things, because you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: people believe this, at least at the time. But then
Speaker 2: as the as the time went on increasingly increasingly throughout
Speaker 2: the seventies and the eighties, there was a feeling with
Speaker 2: so many of the people who were not only were
Speaker 2: involved were present on that day, but with the American public,
Speaker 2: they're like, this just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: I think the latest pulling was something like sixty percent
Speaker 1: of the American people now do not buy the Warren Commission
Speaker 1: official explanation, you know, just to underscore some of what
Speaker 1: you're saying there, because it becomes really critical.
Speaker 3: You know, in this.
Speaker 1: Telling, which stretcher the bullet ended up on. Was it
Speaker 1: Governor Connolly or was it JFK? And this secret Service
Speaker 1: agent land as he says that it was, he definitely
Speaker 1: placed it on JFK stretcher. There was even testimony at
Speaker 1: the time of how the bullet went from one stretcher
Speaker 1: to the other stretcher. There's a Parkland Memorial Hospital engineer
Speaker 1: named Darryl Tomlinson who originally testified that the two stretchers
Speaker 1: were in very proximate locations and the one that had
Speaker 1: JFK on it got bumped and he saw a bullet
Speaker 1: fall off of that stretcher onto the floor. Now, under
Speaker 1: badgering and bullying basically from Arl Inspector, his testimony became
Speaker 1: a little different when it came time for the Warren Commission,
Speaker 1: which shows you again how this was not just a
Speaker 1: straightforward fact finding mission. Arl Inspector and many of the
Speaker 1: other people who were on that commission who influenced that commission,
Speaker 1: they had a certain narrative. They wanted that they tried
Speaker 1: to get all of the facts to fit. There's also
Speaker 1: a lot of questions about the autopsy that was performed
Speaker 1: and some of the pictures that disappeared and were never
Speaker 1: released and may have shown some evidence of other shrapnel,
Speaker 1: which again would point to additional rounds, which again would
Speaker 1: basically rule out the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was
Speaker 1: the loan gunman. So somehow those pictures disappeared. Don't know why,
Speaker 1: but could be very convenient for people who wanted a
Speaker 1: particular narrative to go forward and to be able to
Speaker 1: put this in the rear view mirror and not have
Speaker 1: a lot of people asking a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: Jefferson Morley, who's JFK researcher and former I think Washington
Speaker 1: Post journalist and run he's has a substack called JFK Facts.
Speaker 1: His reaction was, he said, the importance of this story
Speaker 1: is that the newspaper of record, because this was originally
Speaker 1: published in The New York Times, now acknowledges the official
Speaker 1: theory of a quote loan gunman is not very credible.
Speaker 1: Twice in three months, the paper's ace reporter has broken
Speaker 1: JFK News, and he goes on to say that he
Speaker 1: his substacks is going to have Substack is going to
Speaker 1: have more revelations on the way. But I do think
Speaker 1: that that the fact that the damn has broken in
Speaker 1: some ways in terms of mainstream news questioning some of
Speaker 1: the official narrative that has been pushed for decades and
Speaker 1: decades at this point, I do think that that is
Speaker 1: noteworthy as well.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent got to give all the credit to
Speaker 2: Oliver Stone. He's the one who reopened this entire thing
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety nine with his film. That film had
Speaker 2: the JFK Assassination Records Act. That didn't end up working
Speaker 2: out because we still didn't get it, but that really
Speaker 2: reignited you know, public attention and in terms of interest,
Speaker 2: and it's been going on now for you know, that
Speaker 2: was before I was even born. That movie came out,
Speaker 2: and still people like me were able to watch the
Speaker 2: movie and then engage with his documentary and more so,
Speaker 2: I give him all the credit in the world. I
Speaker 2: really think he's almost singularly responsible for bringing this back
Speaker 2: in terms of public attention and then paving the way
Speaker 2: over the last thirty years and opening it so that
Speaker 2: people like Peter Baker can publish this in the New
Speaker 2: York Times. Really excellent stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, so we'll keep a close eye on that one, Talger,
Speaker 1: What are you looking at this much?
Speaker 2: Well, people in the gun world are often derided as
Speaker 2: paranoid conspiracy theorists. Nobody wants to take your guns. That's
Speaker 2: mostly the conventional line. It's held up recently until the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty Democratic primary race, when Beto Rourke proudly declared, quote,
Speaker 2: damn right, we are coming for your ar fifteen. Actually
Speaker 2: appreciated when you said that, because it's just obvious and
Speaker 2: true in the intent of what the end goal for
Speaker 2: a lot of people who are opposed to gun rights
Speaker 2: actually want. At least now you can have a real debate.
Speaker 2: The mask off moment from Beto is now the second
Speaker 2: in terms of what those opposed to gun rights would
Speaker 2: do if they had the power. After a stunning episode
Speaker 2: in the state of New Mexico, the governor of the state,
Speaker 2: Michelle Luhan Grisham, has unilaterally declared a thirty day ban
Speaker 2: on carrying guns in public areas or state property in
Speaker 2: the city of Albuquerque. Through use of a public health
Speaker 2: emergency declaration. The details of the ban are almost too
Speaker 2: incredible to believe. The governor decided to put into place
Speaker 2: this blatantly unconstitutional ban after the death of a five
Speaker 2: year old girl and believes that the gun ban will
Speaker 2: provide a quote cooling off period of gun violence for
Speaker 2: the state so they can figure out the best way
Speaker 2: to address public safety. What really chills the blood, though,
Speaker 2: is not how draconian the ban is, but the words
Speaker 2: that the governor used to in and.
Speaker 10: All to the Constitution.
Speaker 11: Isn't it unconstitutional to say you cannot exercise your carrying license.
Speaker 14: With one exception, and that is if there's an emergency
Speaker 14: and I've declared an emergency for a temporary amount of time,
Speaker 14: I can invoke additional powers. No constitutional right, in my view,
Speaker 14: including my oath, is intended to be absolute. There are
Speaker 14: restrictions on free speech, there are restrictions on my freedoms
Speaker 14: in this emergency. This eleven year old and all these
Speaker 14: parents who have lost all these children, they deserve my
Speaker 14: attention to have the debate about whether or not in
Speaker 14: an emergency we can create a safer environment, because what
Speaker 14: about their constitutional rights? I took an oath to uphold
Speaker 14: those two and if we ignore this growing problem without
Speaker 14: being bold, I've said that every other New Mexican your
Speaker 14: rights are subrogated to theirs, and they are not in
Speaker 14: my view.
Speaker 2: Well literally said about crimes.
Speaker 11: There are laws against the crimes, so how are they're
Speaker 11: right it?
Speaker 14: But again, if I'm unsafe, who's standing up for that right?
Speaker 14: If this climate is so out of control, somebody should
Speaker 14: do something. I'm doing as much as I know to do.
Speaker 2: That is the purest distillation of the doctrine of safetyism
Speaker 2: I've ever heard. The governor declares that her commitment to
Speaker 2: the Constitution is not absolute, and worse, he uses the
Speaker 2: justification of all evil. If I feel I'm unsafe, than
Speaker 2: my rights trump yours. That's the extension of COVID ideology
Speaker 2: became normalized with lockdowns during the pandemic. No surprise to
Speaker 2: me that the Governor's then using the public health emergency
Speaker 2: as justification for the order. And just to be clear,
Speaker 2: this order does directly violate the US Supreme Court and
Speaker 2: the US Constitution. In June twenty twenty two, the Court
Speaker 2: ruled Americans have a right to carry firearms and public
Speaker 2: for self defense after striking down a New York State
Speaker 2: law that sought to implement a provision that said you
Speaker 2: must need proper cause to carry a gun outside your
Speaker 2: home in the state. The case, colloquially known as Bruin,
Speaker 2: fundamentally altered any state's ability to infringe upon carry laws
Speaker 2: in the public and directly set up this challenge now
Speaker 2: to the New Mexico governor. The iron is, you do
Speaker 2: not need a pro gun person like me to tell
Speaker 2: you any of this. Listen here. Anti gun activists David
Speaker 2: Hogg or Congressman Ted lou both tweeted some version of
Speaker 2: the following, I support gun safety laws, but this order
Speaker 2: violates the US Constitution. There is no state in the
Speaker 2: Union that can suspend the federal Constitution. There is no
Speaker 2: such thing as a state public health emergency exception to
Speaker 2: the US Constitution. And I guess the worst person you
Speaker 2: know just did make a good point, as the meme says,
Speaker 2: As both Hogg and Lou has said, gun groups already
Speaker 2: assuming the state of New Mexico, it likely won't even
Speaker 2: survive much longer. Sheriff's offices are wary about even implementing
Speaker 2: it because what the governor wants, Even though they could
Speaker 2: open themselves up now to civil litigation for blatantly violating,
Speaker 2: as I said, constitutional rights. So at least in this
Speaker 2: case it doesn't look like it may work. But don't
Speaker 2: delude yourself. If they could do it, they one hundred
Speaker 2: percent would, and worse, all of it is a cover
Speaker 2: for much bigger problems that we are all trying to
Speaker 2: move past. The government resferred to action by this death
Speaker 2: of children killed in recent shooting spates, including one road
Speaker 2: rage incident in a minor league baseball game, or the
Speaker 2: shooting of a five year old killed and drive by shooting.
Speaker 2: Let's stake the case of the five year old killed
Speaker 2: for example. You can see why this band doesn't even
Speaker 2: make any sense. Of the five people who were charged
Speaker 2: in the death of the five year old, only one
Speaker 2: suspect so far is even an adult. That adult is
Speaker 2: the girlfriend of one of the alleged shooters, who's seventeen
Speaker 2: years old. The others charge an incident are aged fifteen
Speaker 2: and sixteen, along with other teenagers. So other than the
Speaker 2: girlfriend of the person primarily thought responsible for the death
Speaker 2: of this young child, not one of these people could
Speaker 2: even legally buy or carry a gun. In fact, if
Speaker 2: we're talking about handguns, then not a single person, even
Speaker 2: involved in the shooting, could legally buy or carry one
Speaker 2: in the state of New Mexico, or in the case
Speaker 2: of the eleven year old, the shooter is actually still
Speaker 2: at large. We don't even know anything about them, or
Speaker 2: if the gun they carried was legal, or how it
Speaker 2: was obtained. They should be focusing on catching the killer
Speaker 2: instead of infringing on the rights of actually law abiding citizens.
Speaker 2: And it just strikes the core of what the gun
Speaker 2: first people always reach for. They're trying to paper over
Speaker 2: what is an obvious societal illness that runs so much
Speaker 2: deeper than guns. Teenagers are doing drive buys and people
Speaker 2: are killed in children in road rage accidents. That's what
Speaker 2: happens in a sick culture. And yes, you can say
Speaker 2: other countries have societal ills and they don't have shootings.
Speaker 2: You would be right, but don't forget in our country
Speaker 2: we do have an enshrined right to own and carry
Speaker 2: a gun if we so choose. In such a country
Speaker 2: with already hundreds of millions of gun in private ownership,
Speaker 2: that is just simply how it's going to go. That
Speaker 2: is not to say that we don't have a responsibility
Speaker 2: to each other, only we must understand and define the
Speaker 2: actual challenge we seek to address. In this case, it's
Speaker 2: clear crime was used to justify then an unconstitutional power grab,
Speaker 2: and it shows that people who are gun owners to
Speaker 2: what the real agenda is and always has been. I'm
Speaker 2: curious what you think of this, Crystal. I know you're
Speaker 2: supportive of some gun restrictions as well, but what did
Speaker 2: you make of the governor's order and then kind of
Speaker 2: what I was talking about in terms of the crime
Speaker 2: and paper over and we've had this discussion before.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's a lot of thoughts I have on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is uncustomed, like it's just it goes
Speaker 1: way too far. But I take it a little bit
Speaker 1: of a different view because I was heartened to see
Speaker 1: that you had people who focus a lot on gun
Speaker 1: control or gun safety or how we want to put it,
Speaker 1: who were like, no, this is too far, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, far from drawing the conclusion of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is what the gun activists really want, I actually
Speaker 1: saw the limits of what most of the mainstream proponents
Speaker 1: of gun control, gun orform how you want to label it,
Speaker 1: where they actually want to go. So I took the
Speaker 1: opposite conclusion from that side. The other thing I would
Speaker 1: question you on is you said that this was, you know,
Speaker 1: evidence of the cult.
Speaker 3: Or the view or the ideology of safetyism.
Speaker 1: Do you see it the same way when it's Republicans
Speaker 1: using or pushing authoritarian tactics to deal with crime and
Speaker 1: law and order. Well, well, because because there's more there's
Speaker 1: more interest in or crime seems to be actually a
Speaker 1: hotter political issue on the right than it is on
Speaker 1: the left. So I'm curious if you see that same
Speaker 1: concern about like safety over everybody's rights being a problem
Speaker 1: when it comes from the right in their tactics.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that at the very least, and luckily,
Speaker 2: we have a well defined civil liberties and Miranda rights
Speaker 2: that you know, defendants and criminals are actually like subjected to,
Speaker 2: So it's not like we don't have an adjudicated process.
Speaker 2: But I mean absolutely, I mean I don't support policies
Speaker 2: like coop and frisk or anything like that, for example.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people look, and you're
Speaker 2: not wrong. Many people are one hundred percent hypocrites whenever
Speaker 2: it comes to this issue. And in fact, like I'm
Speaker 2: an absolute defender of people's ability to walk the street
Speaker 2: and not be accosted by police or pretext for any
Speaker 2: of these ridiculous things for search and seizure that a
Speaker 2: lot of these cops have. So, I mean we've done
Speaker 2: plenty of stories on that here. They all hear it
Speaker 2: from me too, yeah, I mean you probably won't hear
Speaker 2: it from them. I mean, I just think we want
Speaker 2: to live in a society where look, if you're law abiding,
Speaker 2: if you have a gun, or if you're just walking
Speaker 2: down the street and happened to be black andron in
Speaker 2: the Bronx or something, you should be able to go
Speaker 2: about your business. I mean that's just my view personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because there was a lot of support among not
Speaker 1: only Republican lawmakers but the president of the United States
Speaker 1: at the time, a lot of you Republican like just
Speaker 1: regular rank and file people for like deploying the military
Speaker 1: when there were riots going on during George Floyd, and
Speaker 1: I didn't hear that being framed as like safetyism, and
Speaker 1: there was less concern about the unconstitutional power grab nature
Speaker 1: of that direction coming for the right. So I actually
Speaker 1: am more accustomed to seeing authoritarian power grabs with regards
Speaker 1: to law and order and a sort of like lock
Speaker 1: them up. We got to crack down on crime above
Speaker 1: everything else. I'm more accustomed to seeing that from the right.
Speaker 1: This to me was like the liberal mirror image of
Speaker 1: some of those tactics that I certainly don't support.
Speaker 2: Coming I think you're right, and you know, I've actually
Speaker 2: thought a lot about that. I think that in that context,
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why people were willing to go
Speaker 2: along with it was I think myself included was the
Speaker 2: idea that people's personal property was not being protected. And
Speaker 2: I think that I still believe that that was true.
Speaker 2: That said, I mean, I think I can look back
Speaker 2: on that and be like, yeah, that was It'd be
Speaker 2: a terrible precedent, specifically in a type of civil of
Speaker 2: civil unrest, and just to think about, you know, in
Speaker 2: terms of what we're actually trying to achieve and what
Speaker 2: we were trying to achieve at that time. And I
Speaker 2: think this is where the Floyd people got it totally wrong,
Speaker 2: and it uses a pretext for looting. A lot of
Speaker 2: cops and others, you know, basically stood by. But at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, I do think it was
Speaker 2: a local responsibility and I don't think the FEDS should
Speaker 2: step in, you know, at that time, So I've thought
Speaker 2: about that a lot, you know, since then, and specifically
Speaker 2: also given what happened after January sixth, it was really
Speaker 2: just a complete vindication of the idea. It's like, look,
Speaker 2: when you get these people and they're going to take
Speaker 2: it all the way, yeah, and you just shouldn't get
Speaker 2: You should never give it to them in the first place.
Speaker 1: Here's the other thing I'm curious about is, I think
Speaker 1: for people who live in these areas, and I looked
Speaker 1: up while you're talking, I looked up the Buquerque crime stats.
Speaker 1: Homicides are up seventy one percent from twenty seventeen to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. They did actually decline some in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two from the height I think was in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one. However, seventy one percent increase over that time period,
Speaker 1: you know, people are still feeling like, yes, they're a danger,
Speaker 1: their kids aren't safe, et cetera. And I'm curious what
Speaker 1: the local reaction will be to her order, because we
Speaker 1: know when people are stressed and fear for their own
Speaker 1: safety and don't feel secure in their own environment, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: too often they are willing to throw their rights or
Speaker 1: other people's rights aside for that sense of safety and protection.
Speaker 1: So while there was a lot of sort of national
Speaker 1: level condemnation, I'm actually curious how people there locally respond
Speaker 1: to the order and if they have the same reaction
Speaker 1: or if they have more of a like good at
Speaker 1: least somebody is doing something kind.
Speaker 2: Of curious too. But I mean, here's the thing, DC,
Speaker 2: where you and I are right now, we have the
Speaker 2: strictest gun laws in the country. Our homicide rate is
Speaker 2: actually not gone down at all. We have over one
Speaker 2: hundred percent increase in property crime and in genuine like
Speaker 2: gun death. So it's like it's not the gun laws. People.
Speaker 2: You know, you could you literally can.
Speaker 8: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean but DC is like right in the middle,
Speaker 1: right next to Virginia, and you know, you can't expect
Speaker 1: just one locality to take to their gun laws to have it.
Speaker 2: I'm more what I'm saying is you can walk. And
Speaker 2: they do this all the time. I mean, listen, go
Speaker 2: look at the DC prison and look at the number
Speaker 2: one way that they throw people in jail gun charge.
Speaker 2: It will give you five years for a single bullet
Speaker 2: that you have wrong, Yeah that's in your pocket. I
Speaker 2: mean they use it as a pretext all the time.
Speaker 2: It's not doing anything. You know, if you if you're
Speaker 2: worried about homicide, people stop people here all the time now,
Speaker 2: as from what I've heard recently, in search their cars
Speaker 2: and others look for cuns, and that's one of the
Speaker 2: number one ways that they try and crack down on crime.
Speaker 2: We still have a huge homicide rate. Yeah's just one
Speaker 2: of those where it's like, it's clearly not going to
Speaker 2: do anything.
Speaker 1: I don't I wouldn't say it won't do anything. I mean,
Speaker 1: in this instance, I actually grew. I doobt it will
Speaker 1: do anything, just because you're talking about in one little city, right,
Speaker 1: So you're not going to change the overall national culture
Speaker 1: of gun ownership by changing the rules or regulations in
Speaker 1: one particular city. I'm curious about what the public reaction
Speaker 1: will be to it. If there is a positive reaction,
Speaker 1: at least someone is trying to do something. And then overall,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think you can deny that where
Speaker 1: we are an outlier is the number of guns that
Speaker 1: we have in our society and the ease of access
Speaker 1: and all of that. And I mean, in my mind,
Speaker 1: there's no doubt that that plays into the level of
Speaker 1: violence that we have in our society versus other countries.
Speaker 1: But in terms of disorder, one hundred percent agree with you.
Speaker 1: Unconstitutional power grab, don't support it, don't think it will
Speaker 1: probably have much of an impact. Yeah, I don't even
Speaker 1: think it will have much of an impact because of
Speaker 1: some of the limitations that you're pointing out. But you know,
Speaker 1: it does raise for me some other questions about some
Speaker 1: of the approaches to law and order and tough on
Speaker 1: crime that seem to get more of a pass.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Chris, what do you takeing a look at? Well?
Speaker 1: A recent AI news generation program at a major newspaper
Speaker 1: was pulled after publishing hilariously.
Speaker 3: Bizarre high school sports articles. Okay, here are the details.
Speaker 1: Gannette, which owns USA Today and whole slew of local papers,
Speaker 1: started using AI to generate local news stories and the
Speaker 1: results were amazingly bad. Here is a great example quote,
Speaker 1: Westerville North escapes Westerville Central in thin win in Ohio
Speaker 1: high school football action.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Totally sounds like a human being wrote that, for sure.
Speaker 1: Please continue. The article goes on Westerville North edged Westerville
Speaker 1: Central twenty one to twelve in a close encounter of
Speaker 1: the athletic kind at Westerville North High on August eighteenth
Speaker 1: in Ohio football action. The Warriors chalked up this decision
Speaker 1: in spite of the warhawks spirited fourth quarter performance. In
Speaker 1: a different story, AI failed to figure out what the
Speaker 1: school's mascots were, and they published the Worthington Christian winning
Speaker 1: team mascot defeated the Westerville North losing team mascot two
Speaker 1: to one in an Ohio boys soccer game on Saturday. Now,
Speaker 1: Gannette has since suspended this experiment, presumably leaving it to
Speaker 1: the actual human beings to try to report on future
Speaker 1: thin winds and close encounters of the athletic kind. This
Speaker 1: particular situation is of course an embarrassment both for Gannett,
Speaker 1: which has fired a bunch of their employees over the
Speaker 1: past couple of years as the news business and especially
Speaker 1: the local news business has declined and become boor difficult,
Speaker 1: and it is obviously embarrassing for the entire AI industry, which,
Speaker 1: far from being ready to revolutionize the workforce or decimate
Speaker 1: the workforce, can't even credibly publish the most basic information
Speaker 1: about the most basic events without being utterly absurd, unreliable,
Speaker 1: and inaccurate. So at least when it comes to the
Speaker 1: drafting and publishing of news stories. I think the journals
Speaker 1: for now can rest easy. Chat GPD is in any
Speaker 1: more prepared to take over the news industry than autonomous
Speaker 1: driving is prepared to take over taxi and truck driving.
Speaker 1: So for now, I guess score one for humanity, But
Speaker 1: the victory is honestly marginal because in another deeper sense,
Speaker 1: the robots and their masters, they've already won a lot
Speaker 1: in terms of how news is generated and how it's disseminated,
Speaker 1: and we barely even notice the attack. What do I
Speaker 1: mean here, Well, as you know, I'm a big proponent
Speaker 1: of independent media as an antidote to corporate legacy media.
Speaker 1: But the further we get into this new era, which
Speaker 1: is in many ways exciting and continues to hold deep promise,
Speaker 1: the more I see the limitations of what independent actually means.
Speaker 1: Because while individual creators can break free from the constraints
Speaker 1: of giant, corporate, profit driven news conglomerate conglomerates, they're still
Speaker 1: beholden to the incentives created by the tech giants on
Speaker 1: which they depend. And probably the most powerful force in
Speaker 1: independent news generation is YouTube's algorithm.
Speaker 2: We all live or.
Speaker 3: Die by it.
Speaker 1: Its whims, preferences, amplifications, and punishments have created the independent
Speaker 1: news ecosystem as we know it. Individual creators can try
Speaker 1: to resist its siren song. We have intentionally tried to
Speaker 1: algorithm proof and big tech proof our business here at
Speaker 1: breaking points, but it's like one person trying to stand
Speaker 1: up to a force of nature. The overall landscape is
Speaker 1: going to be shaped and built by the big tech
Speaker 1: AI reward system. And it's not just on the creator side.
Speaker 1: These robots are also so shaping your brain, messing with
Speaker 1: your view of the world, driving you towards certain content
Speaker 1: and away from others. On Facebook, whistleblower revealed how the
Speaker 1: platform's algorithm rewarded anger emojis at five times the weight
Speaker 1: of likes, aggressively pushing highly emotional content into user feeds. Facebook,
Speaker 1: like other platforms, cares more about how long you spend
Speaker 1: on the platform, being served ads and having your data
Speaker 1: harvested than how much you're actually enjoying that time, or
Speaker 1: whether the quality of your experience is good or bad.
Speaker 1: They also use their user base like guinea pigs, conducting
Speaker 1: social experiments, attempting explicitly to manipulate user emotions, and even
Speaker 1: to push them to become closer friends with some in
Speaker 1: their networks over others creepy stuff that we have little
Speaker 1: awareness of and even less say. Over, Twitter under Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: has used the for you page to aggressively push certain
Speaker 1: content and hide other content. But unlike the other platforms
Speaker 1: must Twitter has opted to make their biggest content decisions
Speaker 1: based on the personal whims and preferences of their sovereign
Speaker 1: Lord Elon, who can bless their punish creators based on
Speaker 1: his own ego and worldview. In a sense, I actually
Speaker 1: appreciate the blatant nature of Elon's approach. He strips some
Speaker 1: of the AI mistique away and just makes it super
Speaker 1: clear the way that our oligarchs are screwing with us
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 12: Now.
Speaker 1: On its surface, our universe of multi platform news looks independent,
Speaker 1: like individual humans making individual decisions and listen. There is
Speaker 1: a lot of that going on at the micro level,
Speaker 1: and a lot of fantastic creators out there. But at
Speaker 1: the macro level, it is a garden of creators and
Speaker 1: content cultivated, tilled, and pruned by robots. Human beings unaware
Speaker 1: how they're being programmed by machines who have in turn
Speaker 1: been programmed by tech giants to drive their own profits
Speaker 1: or corporate agendas. So before the chatbots and deep freaks
Speaker 1: have even really joined the war, humanity has already lost
Speaker 1: one war that it was being waged in secret under
Speaker 1: the cloak of the supposedly free market, where they declared
Speaker 1: victory before we even really caught on to what was
Speaker 1: happening for this next battle that we're facing now, at
Speaker 1: least the tech for now it's clunky enough that we
Speaker 1: can all see what the bosses robots are up to
Speaker 1: a close encounter of the oligarchic kind. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say it did really get me thinking.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
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