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 1: What do we have, Crystal, Indeed, we do lots of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four news to get into this morning. We've
Speaker 1: got a war over wokeness in the Republican primary that
Speaker 1: nobody's sort of expected between Trump and Desantists will tell
Speaker 1: you about that. We've also got the debate over the debates,
Speaker 1: both on the Republican side and on the Democratic side.
Speaker 1: And RFK Junior gets a bit and very prominent endorsement.
Speaker 1: YouTube is actually changing their misinformation policy with regard to
Speaker 1: election misinformation. We also have a big decision from the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court that could hurt workers and their right to strike.
Speaker 1: So we'll break down all of those details for you.
Speaker 1: In addition, I know this is going to be huge
Speaker 1: news for our viewing audience. Chuck Todd out at Meet
Speaker 1: the Press. Kristen Welker is going to be the host
Speaker 1: of that long running Sunday show, So we'll tell you
Speaker 1: about that and what the plans are there. I'll so
Speaker 1: excited about a guest on just how much military industrial
Speaker 1: complex money is going to all of the analysts that
Speaker 1: you're hearing on the Ukraine War. You perhaps it won't
Speaker 1: be surprised, but still important to dig into all of
Speaker 1: those details. But before we get to that saga, why
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Speaker 1: Yes, so the old set has gone into a cocoon
Speaker 1: and it will emerge next week as a beautiful butterfly.
Speaker 2: That's that's exactly right. We still have got a great
Speaker 2: show though for everybody. We're going to make sure that
Speaker 2: we have all of the normal content that you are
Speaker 2: used to. So let's start here with the woke war
Speaker 2: of words. President Trump actually kind of surprising people in
Speaker 2: the campaign whenever he came out and attacked DeSantis apparently
Speaker 2: for always using the term woke in his campaign. Here's
Speaker 2: what Trump had to say.
Speaker 3: It's gotten sick. And I don't like the term woke
Speaker 3: because I hear woke, woke, woke. You know, it's like
Speaker 3: just a term that use. Half the people can't even
Speaker 3: define it. They don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: Ooh, a little bit of a Bethany Vandell moment there
Speaker 2: are going for President Trump says, half the people can't
Speaker 2: even define it. I don't like hearing it over and
Speaker 2: over again. It's interesting always to me because Trump always
Speaker 2: hones in on something which is someone's political vulnerability, but
Speaker 2: which other Republicans refuse to say that said. DeSantis also
Speaker 2: had his response. So Christal, we'll talk about the fulsome
Speaker 2: nature of this woke war of words after we hear it.
Speaker 2: Let's take a listen to what Dessanta said.
Speaker 4: Wolke is an existential threat to our society. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's an attack on truth. It's a form of cultural Marxism,
Speaker 4: and it really subordinates merit and achievement to things like
Speaker 4: identity politics. You can't have a vibrant, free society of
Speaker 4: every institution is dominated by wolk ideology. And to say
Speaker 4: it's not a big deal, that just shows you, know,
Speaker 4: you don't understand what a lot of these issues are
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 2: Woke is an existential threat to the country. You shouldn't
Speaker 2: be running if you don't understand it. It shows a
Speaker 2: mismatching judgment. Trump saying woke, woke, woke, nobody can even
Speaker 2: define it. What did you make of all of this?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's interesting to me. I'm always a little
Speaker 1: bit leery of offering my assessment of exactly what the
Speaker 1: Republican base might think about this, because I'm not a
Speaker 1: part of the Republican base, but it seems likely to
Speaker 1: me that this reflects a bit of the class split
Speaker 1: between the DeSantis and Trump base. So, you know, Trump
Speaker 1: is very much and always has been sort of attuned
Speaker 1: to what a working class GOP aligned or GOP interested,
Speaker 1: or more like sort of working class independent base, what
Speaker 1: they might be feeling. DeSantis has already proven that he
Speaker 1: has much stronger support among the college educated portion of
Speaker 1: the Republican base, So I don't know. My instinct is
Speaker 1: that Trump kind of has his finger on the pulse
Speaker 1: of the way people are starting to feel about this
Speaker 1: word which is so wildly overused, which you know, originally,
Speaker 1: I think there was a usefulness to talking about a
Speaker 1: pushback to the you know, political correctness and the cancel
Speaker 1: culture and the authoritarian tendencies of liberals and left liberals.
Speaker 1: But now when you're talking about like the problem with
Speaker 1: the military is that it's woke, the problem with bank
Speaker 1: bail ounce, or that they're woke, the thing just loses
Speaker 1: all meaning and collapses into you know, nothingness, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people in the country are probably
Speaker 1: it's done to that, including a lot of people in
Speaker 1: the Republican base who are like, this doesn't really connect
Speaker 1: to me in my life and the things that I'm
Speaker 1: actually concerned about in terms of putting food on the table.
Speaker 2: I'm of two minds. So on one hand, I actually
Speaker 2: saw a recent poll was said that the number one
Speaker 2: issue for Republican voters is going after what they see
Speaker 2: as and they didn't use the term woke in the poll,
Speaker 2: but they basically just said cultural left tendency, specifically by
Speaker 2: corporations and through the broader culture. So that's one thing.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, you know, Trump, I think
Speaker 2: one of his geniuses. What you're identifying is you're right,
Speaker 2: which is that the most activist part of the Republican
Speaker 2: base whenever it comes to wokeness, you know, corporations and
Speaker 2: all of that, it really is more of a highly educated,
Speaker 2: more of a conservative you know, who went to college,
Speaker 2: which again, you know, it's not actually very typical for
Speaker 2: not only the median voter in the United States, but
Speaker 2: even for the person who is in the GOP primary,
Speaker 2: so they might identify and see it as something else.
Speaker 2: And I think it gets to what Trump's attack on
Speaker 2: Desanta's is, where he's always trying to go after him
Speaker 2: for saying that he's empty, that he's a lightweight, and
Speaker 2: that is where it is connecting. I genuinely don't know
Speaker 2: how it will land because at the same time, like
Speaker 2: we said, it is a word almost drummed into the
Speaker 2: political consciousness at this point of every American class, status
Speaker 2: or not. And I do think it is also interesting
Speaker 2: from a different angle, which is whenever you think about
Speaker 2: Trump and his political genius, what he's able to connect to.
Speaker 2: He does not necessarily go after wokeness. He always goes
Speaker 2: after discrete issues. And actually that's kind of what we
Speaker 2: always try to do here. We very rarely use the
Speaker 2: term woke. I may use it, you know, every once
Speaker 2: in a while, but more than often or not. Like
Speaker 2: affirmative action, we're not describing that as woke. We're just like,
Speaker 2: affirmative action is bad, and then like we'll go through
Speaker 2: the exact discrete nature. If you want to talk about
Speaker 2: the military, I mean, whenever people say the military is woke,
Speaker 2: it's like, well, what are you objecting to you're objecting
Speaker 2: to General Millie, you know, citing critical race theory before
Speaker 2: Congress and then diversity equity an inclusion initiative. So once
Speaker 2: again attack things that are discrete and trying to think
Speaker 2: of some all encompassing term that becomes meaningless because then
Speaker 2: you end up just in the situation that you describe Chrystal,
Speaker 2: where bailing out SVB is woke. It could just be bad,
Speaker 2: you know, like we could just say things are bad
Speaker 2: and you could talk about things from that nature.
Speaker 1: Right, But it's I mean, I've always felt this that
Speaker 1: I've articulated this on the show a number of times,
Speaker 1: like the use of wokeness to describe things that conservatives
Speaker 1: like Ron DeSantis don't like. Uh, we saw this, you know.
Speaker 1: The first time we really got a sort of clear
Speaker 1: example of this is when Marco Rubio said, Hey, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm gonna support the Amazon workers down in Bessemer.
Speaker 1: Not because we need a general pushback against corporate power,
Speaker 1: not because in general I think workers should have a
Speaker 1: union so that they have some power within their workplace,
Speaker 1: but because of the discrete, woke HR policies that happen
Speaker 1: to exist at Amazon. So it's a way to be
Speaker 1: very selective about your critique of corporate power without actually
Speaker 1: really challenging corporate power the structures that enables it. So
Speaker 1: it's been very convenient, but it also speaks to you know,
Speaker 1: DeSantis in his launch, even putting the tech glitches aside
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff, the language that he has
Speaker 1: adopted and that he uses is in his media appearances,
Speaker 1: that he even uses in a stump speech, is so
Speaker 1: online and so inaccessible. It's the polar opposite of the
Speaker 1: way that Trump speaks. I remember when he first ran
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, they were all these analyzes that were
Speaker 1: supposed to be damning to Trump about how he speaks
Speaker 1: at like a third grade or a fourth grade level
Speaker 1: or whatever. But actually he's an effective communicator, maybe an
Speaker 1: unconventional communicator, but a very effective communicator because he boils
Speaker 1: things down, he makes them simple, and he uses language
Speaker 1: that is very accessible to absolutely everyone. DeSantis is on
Speaker 1: the polar end of that spectrum. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like Trump and DeSantis are really different from a
Speaker 1: policy level on the basket of issues you may consider woke.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think state that very same day Trump
Speaker 1: was also talking about the woke military or whatever. But
Speaker 1: their communication styles are obviously wildly different. The issues set
Speaker 1: that they choose to spend the most of their time on,
Speaker 1: where that are sort of very clear passion projects, are
Speaker 1: also very different. We noted Sager that in Trump's announcement speech,
Speaker 1: if he mentioned transgender issues at all, it was you know,
Speaker 1: it was very scarce. Abortion wasn't there at all. So
Speaker 1: the set of issues that Trump leans into and clearly
Speaker 1: has an actual like interest in and passion for, very
Speaker 1: different from the set of issues that Ron DeSantis has
Speaker 1: used to become a national figure within the Conservative Party.
Speaker 2: Smart I completely agree. They're also sparring on the vaccine.
Speaker 2: This was a fascinating one act actually to watch because
Speaker 2: Trump has been hearing some pushback from even people who
Speaker 2: are attending his rallies on the vaccine, and it's leading
Speaker 2: to a war of words about who supported the vaccine
Speaker 2: but then didn't support the vaccine and then was pro
Speaker 2: mandate and then re litigating also whether the Trump lockdown
Speaker 2: strategy was his fault or Fauci's fault. And this has
Speaker 2: actually become a major core contention between DeSantis and between
Speaker 2: Trump is specifically their records on COVID. Let's go ahead
Speaker 2: and put this up there on the screen, because this
Speaker 2: kind of gets to it and why I think it
Speaker 2: is going to be difficult for him overall. Ay, there
Speaker 2: was no bump currently for DeSantis from the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four launch as Trump continues to climb even though DeSantis,
Speaker 2: as I have noted here, has continued his attacks on Trump,
Speaker 2: specifically on the vaccine. He has and I've given him
Speaker 2: credit here for it, has you know, very taken up
Speaker 2: an aggressive posture where he's calling out Trump by name,
Speaker 2: responding to the attacks, trying to make himself become the
Speaker 2: formidable and only challenger to Trump, willing to actually rhetorically
Speaker 2: spar with him. But on the vaccine itself, this shows
Speaker 2: you a little bit about why it's going to be
Speaker 2: so difficult for him. You know, let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: put this up on the screen, guys from CNN. This
Speaker 2: is from Andrew Kosinski where he shows you know, Ron
Speaker 2: DeSantis actually praised Anthony Faunci for COVID response in spring
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty for quote really doing a good job. Now,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying this is a hit piece on DeSantis.
Speaker 2: There's no question that he obviously departed from that. What
Speaker 2: I am saying and trying to show people here is
Speaker 2: that trying to re litigate a moment in time three
Speaker 2: years ago is going to be very difficult and dicey,
Speaker 2: especially because all Trump has to say, Crystal is he
Speaker 2: praised my response at the time. He departed from it
Speaker 2: a little bit later on. But also he you know,
Speaker 2: was kissing my ass and these endorsement videos, uh defending
Speaker 2: me on television. There really was no split between the
Speaker 2: two until basically after Trump had gone ahead and left
Speaker 2: the White House. And so that is why I've always
Speaker 2: believed that DeSantis best line is the one he actually
Speaker 2: used recently. He said, you know, they were asking about
Speaker 2: how do you pronounce my name? Is it DeSantis or DeSantis?
Speaker 2: He said, the way that you just say it is winner.
Speaker 2: I'm the winner. I'm the one who has actually won
Speaker 2: recently in this race. It's a forward looking and it's
Speaker 2: more a positive one that not only primary voters could
Speaker 2: connect to you, but people across the country could connect
Speaker 2: to But then he run into the Gordian knot of Trump,
Speaker 2: who Republicans don't believe actually lost at all. They do
Speaker 2: think he is a winner. Maybe Desanti is just a
Speaker 2: bigger winner. So yeah, look, it's funny. It's a hard situation.
Speaker 1: It's funny to me. You liked that line that Dessanta's
Speaker 1: it's not or DeSantis it's a winner. I thought it
Speaker 1: was really terrible. I thought it was Oh, I thought
Speaker 1: it was so cringey. But anyway, again, I'm not the
Speaker 1: audience for it, so listen on the COVID stuff. I
Speaker 1: think DeSantis I really thought this was going to be
Speaker 1: his in and his avenue of attack on Trump. He
Speaker 1: thought this would be the way that he could separate himself.
Speaker 1: And you know, it was a year ago, a major
Speaker 1: energizing issue for the Republican base, and I think he's
Speaker 1: having trouble letting that go even though people have moved on,
Speaker 1: Like it's just not the energizing issue for anyone that
Speaker 1: it was at one time. So yeah, they can go
Speaker 1: back and forth this war of words. Honestly, it's kind
Speaker 1: of I think it's kind of like wasted time for
Speaker 1: both of them at this point. I think the other
Speaker 1: thing is, you know, Trump just gets away with stuff
Speaker 1: that other politicians can't get away with. So if another
Speaker 1: politician had kept Anthony Fauci on that might be devastating
Speaker 1: for them. Somehow Trump just gets away with these things.
Speaker 1: So personally, I don't think that this is going to
Speaker 1: be you know, the winning issue that Ron DeSantis wants
Speaker 1: it to be. Also, because Trump is able as he
Speaker 1: this is what he's so good at. He muddies the waters.
Speaker 1: You know, he'll be He'll be using the video of
Speaker 1: DeSantis praising him over and over again and kissing his butt.
Speaker 1: That's one way to muddy the waters. Another way is
Speaker 1: to point out these areas where you know, DeSantis agreed
Speaker 1: with like the COVID conventional wisdom of the time. So
Speaker 1: I think ultimately this Wassue issue was probably a wash
Speaker 1: for both of them, and you know, uh not the
Speaker 1: ground that the GOP primary is going to be fought on.
Speaker 2: Trump also, you know, displayed his you know skill, I
Speaker 2: guess in this He's like, look, I never supported the mandates,
Speaker 2: but I created the vaccine and it was great and
Speaker 2: you know, actually correctly noting that over seventy five percent
Speaker 2: of Americans did actually receive at least one dose Yeah,
Speaker 2: in the vaccine. Well, I say, before we part, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so on that, you know, the other as you're
Speaker 1: pointing to the big argument in favor of Ron DeSantis
Speaker 1: that his donors really point to and respond to is
Speaker 1: that he's electable. He's more electable than Trump, and you know,
Speaker 1: he may be in the right place with regard to
Speaker 1: to vaccines and sort of like hinting at vaccine skepticism
Speaker 1: or anti vaxxism within the Republican primary. It's not a
Speaker 1: popular position to be in for a general election. As
Speaker 1: you're pointing out, overwhelming majority of Americans got a vaccine,
Speaker 1: and overwhelming majority of them were happy with that decision
Speaker 1: and feel like the vaccines did something. You know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't everything that was promised, but helped reduce the risk
Speaker 1: that they would be severely ill or hospitalized or dead
Speaker 1: from COVID. So this is another issue where I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump can get away with the more moderate
Speaker 1: position in the primary, and it actually gives him a
Speaker 1: stronger case that he's the more electable candidate in the
Speaker 1: fall and a stronger reality that he may be a
Speaker 1: more electable candidate in the fall.
Speaker 2: Well, here's what he had to say, Jeh, for yourself.
Speaker 3: Everybody wanted a vaccine at that time, and I was
Speaker 3: able to do something that nobody else could have done,
Speaker 3: getting it done very, very rapidly. But I never was
Speaker 3: for mandates. I was I thought the mandates were terrible.
Speaker 3: And you know, there's a big portion of the country
Speaker 3: that thinks that was a great thing. You understand that
Speaker 3: not a lot of the people in this room, but
Speaker 3: there's a big but there is a big portion.
Speaker 2: Well he's explaining it, and you know, I've always actually
Speaker 2: thought that, especially even amongst the republic voters, people sixty
Speaker 2: five plaus were overwhelmingly likely to get the vaccine. So
Speaker 2: you know, it's one of those where I genuinely don't know.
Speaker 2: I personally am not inclined to believe, based upon all
Speaker 2: the polling that currently exists, that COVID is going to
Speaker 2: be the number one issue in the primary. People are
Speaker 2: always generally forward looking whenever it does come to elections,
Speaker 2: and especially whenever it comes to switching candidates. They always
Speaker 2: want to see a contrast about the future. It's yes,
Speaker 2: of course, the future is determined by what people have
Speaker 2: done in the past. But that's why I continue to
Speaker 2: think that DeSantis's best option is leaning into being a winner.
Speaker 2: The economic boom of Florida, the net in migration, turning
Speaker 2: America into all of that now, whether it's cringey on
Speaker 2: the winner line or not. I mean, I think what
Speaker 2: I'm baking in is I just don't think he's all
Speaker 2: that politically talented as a speaker, and Trump is Trump
Speaker 2: is compelling, and you know, and this is one of
Speaker 2: those factor things of which we can go back and
Speaker 2: forth all the time, and the country, you know, goes
Speaker 2: back and forth between whether they want somebody like Obama,
Speaker 2: the ultimate eloquent speaker, and then somebody like George W. Bush,
Speaker 2: you could barely string a sentence together. So it's one
Speaker 2: of those I just never know what mood the overall
Speaker 2: electorate is in. Do they want somebody's kind of whiny,
Speaker 2: not all that politically talented, but you know, can speak
Speaker 2: cogently in a sentence, or do they want to see
Speaker 2: the show whenever it comes to Trump.
Speaker 1: I mean, Bush famously even had the like relatability, like
Speaker 1: even though he's this totally unrelatable plutocrite, you know, born
Speaker 1: into a political dynasty family, he had that you want
Speaker 1: to drink a beer with him vibe like that was
Speaker 1: always the famous thing about him that people responded to
Speaker 1: Biden for, you know, all of his agedness and feebleness
Speaker 1: at that point. I mean he has a little bit
Speaker 1: of that as well, where people felt like, ah, this
Speaker 1: is somebody that I sort of relate to, and you know,
Speaker 1: he was always good at sharing empathy with people when
Speaker 1: they were going through very difficult times. I think the
Speaker 1: part of the problem for him is he's lost a
Speaker 1: little bit of that. Now people are seeing less of
Speaker 1: that in him. That's kind of the core of his appeal.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know that DeSantis has either the like,
Speaker 1: you know, the eloquence of Obama or Bill Clinton either
Speaker 1: or the really compelling speaking style of like a Trump
Speaker 1: or a George W. Bush who was also to sort
Speaker 1: of boil things down and make them relatable. I also
Speaker 1: just to go back for a minute to the piece
Speaker 1: we put up about how he didn't get a poll
Speaker 1: bump from his launch. It's kind of devastating. I mean
Speaker 1: he really needed that, you know, like it's a big problem,
Speaker 1: and whether that's because of the tech glitches or the
Speaker 1: content of the launch or the way the media cover whatever,
Speaker 1: it's a huge missed opportunity for him. Even Niki Hiley
Speaker 1: got a bump from her launch, and you know, did
Speaker 1: a very conventional rollout. Sometimes there's no reason to reinvent
Speaker 1: the wheel, and you know, maybe it doesn't matter because
Speaker 1: a lot of times those those initial launch bumps fade anyway.
Speaker 1: But that was really the moment when he needed to
Speaker 1: prove like, Okay, now that I'm in the race, things
Speaker 1: are going to be different, and he wasn't able to
Speaker 1: pull that off. And I think it shows some weaknesses
Speaker 1: in terms of the type of judgment that he makes
Speaker 1: and the type the part of the GOP base that
Speaker 1: he's super responsive to that's not necessarily reflective of the
Speaker 1: larger GOP base. So there are some, to me, some
Speaker 1: real warning signs in the fact that that launch went
Speaker 1: so poorly that he didn't get any kind of benefit
Speaker 1: from the polls and from having all of the media.
Speaker 1: You know, there's not going to be that many times
Speaker 1: for Rondasantis when all of the media is focused on him,
Speaker 1: just given the show that Trump creates and the looming
Speaker 1: indictments and all of that stuff. So when you have
Speaker 1: those moments, you really can't afford to squander him and them,
Speaker 1: and he definitely did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go to the next one because this is important.
Speaker 2: It kind of gets to that about the energy around
Speaker 2: the Santas, Let's go and put this up there on
Speaker 2: the screen, which actually shows that the Desanta's campaign, through
Speaker 2: the new disclosures, had forty thousand donors in the month
Speaker 2: of May. So that means that the campaign relied very
Speaker 2: heavily on big donors. For its eight point two million
Speaker 2: dollar one day they had an average donation of two
Speaker 2: hundred dollars plus, which is colossal, as he says. For comparison,
Speaker 2: Bernie Sanders had a twenty six dollars average per donation
Speaker 2: whenever it comes to day one. That figure, just for
Speaker 2: people who understand again, two hundred dollars is much much
Speaker 2: more than the typical grassroots support. This is actually something
Speaker 2: that we used to see a lot in our early
Speaker 2: analysis of the Democratic primary whenever it came to candidates
Speaker 2: like Corey Booker or Elizabeth Warren, people who had connections
Speaker 2: or better ones to big donors. And what it matters
Speaker 2: and why is that, you know? Whenever it comes to Trump,
Speaker 2: Trump has always been a absolute fundraising juggernaut and he
Speaker 2: actually would often match Bernie Sanders whenever it comes to
Speaker 2: his math In twenty twenty for the ability to drive
Speaker 2: small dollar grassroots fundraising from a massive email list of
Speaker 2: people who just love him and are always willing to that,
Speaker 2: you know, button and look for DeSantis. I guess, you know,
Speaker 2: to defend him just a little bit. It's not like
Speaker 2: they tried to hide it. You know. They literally had
Speaker 2: a big donor conference at the Four Seasons Hotel in
Speaker 2: Miami after they launched. That was the very first thing
Speaker 2: that they did. They were clearly lining this up for
Speaker 2: months before. Part of the pitch on why he's maybe
Speaker 2: the only one to do it is he's got all
Speaker 2: these billionaires that were backing him, Ken Griffin, many others,
Speaker 2: the more college educated base of the Republican Party, the
Speaker 2: people who like DeSantis. Why not lean on that, you know,
Speaker 2: take the money if it's going to be there. These
Speaker 2: people are much disportunately high income. But the reason why
Speaker 2: that you should be at the very least a little
Speaker 2: bit concerned about this if you are part of the
Speaker 2: DeSantis team is getting people jazzed with their dollars is
Speaker 2: the ultimate sign that they will come out, they will
Speaker 2: vote for you, they will do everything possible for you.
Speaker 2: And as we've seen the Scott Walker campaign, the Jeb
Speaker 2: Bush campaign, and so many of these other campaigns having
Speaker 2: a lot of money, it only works to a very
Speaker 2: very small degree.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, then again, Joe Biden had like zero
Speaker 1: grossroots support right he became the Democratic nominee, So it's
Speaker 1: important to keep the counter in mind. In general, I
Speaker 1: agree with your analysis, though it was actually Obama who
Speaker 1: first had this insight that even if you can get
Speaker 1: someone to contribute like a dollar or two dollars, they
Speaker 1: become personally invested in your campaign. They're more likely than
Speaker 1: to volunteer, they're more likely than to engage online, they're
Speaker 1: more likely to show up and vote. So there's a
Speaker 1: strength that comes from that. It indicates the level of
Speaker 1: you know rondo stance has very high favorability in the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. I'm not saying people don't like him. I
Speaker 1: think people do like him. But there's a difference between yeah,
Speaker 1: I like this guy and like I will walk across
Speaker 1: broken glass for this man. And Donald Trump has that
Speaker 1: from his hardcore supporters, like they will be there to
Speaker 1: show up and vote, they will click the you know
Speaker 1: box to send another ten dollars his way. The other
Speaker 1: issue for everybody in the Republican Party is the fact
Speaker 1: that Trump has used and abused his fundraising list, the
Speaker 1: amount of you know, like asks that they make of
Speaker 1: that list, just constant email bombardment of send me more,
Speaker 1: send me more, send me more, has created a real
Speaker 1: donor fatigue for the entire Republican Party that everybody sort
Speaker 1: of suffers from, and behind the scenes a lot of
Speaker 1: Republicans apparently complain about. So that's another piece. And then
Speaker 1: the last part reason why this is significant is because
Speaker 1: if you are dependent for financial support on a millionaire
Speaker 1: or billionaire class, then you have to be sensitive to
Speaker 1: their concerns and you have to, you know, moderate what
Speaker 1: you're saying on Ukraine as one example, if that's an
Speaker 1: issue where they're uncomfortable. And there are quite a number
Speaker 1: of issues where the sort of elite donor class of
Speaker 1: the Republican Party may be at odds with the broader
Speaker 1: GOP base, and so it makes it a little bit
Speaker 1: politically trickier for you to navigate if you've got to
Speaker 1: keep those people happy who don't reflect the wants and
Speaker 1: desires of the working class part of the Republican base
Speaker 1: that desantisis so far really struggle to win over.
Speaker 2: And I have the numbers in front of me, which
Speaker 2: just to prove the point, the average donation for the
Speaker 2: fourth quarter of the Trump campaign was thirty four dollars,
Speaker 2: So compare that to the two hundred. I mean, this
Speaker 2: is what people just don't get. And you know, previously comparatively,
Speaker 2: in the two weeks after Trump was charged, his campaign
Speaker 2: received three hundred and twelve thousand donations in two weeks,
Speaker 2: with an average donation of forty nine bucks. This is
Speaker 2: a fundraising juggernaut of which people are deep always have underestimated,
Speaker 2: and it is a good proxy for voting. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, once again, literally from January to March, he
Speaker 2: received half a million donations. I mean, that is again
Speaker 2: very on par with Obama and with Sanders. These are
Speaker 2: very rare, very very rare political phenomena for people to
Speaker 2: be able to do that, which is why the vast
Speaker 2: majority of them pursue the DeSantis model and they go
Speaker 2: to or the Biden model really and go to big donors.
Speaker 2: As you just said, though, it's not like it can't work.
Speaker 2: It can work, so we shouldn't say that you know
Speaker 2: that it can't, but it is a strength, it is
Speaker 2: a major strength.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the more I think about this, match between DeSantis
Speaker 1: and Trump, the more that it feels there's some echoes
Speaker 1: of Bernie and Elizabeth Warren, for sure. I mean, on paper,
Speaker 1: they support a lot of the same things Bernie and
Speaker 1: Warren do, right, but their approach and the base of
Speaker 1: their support in the way they communicate about those policies
Speaker 1: is just it's just totally different. And so you know,
Speaker 1: their support, where their money came from, and their ability
Speaker 1: to succeed ultimately in the process also ends up being
Speaker 1: totally different. And so yeah, I'm not saying it's exactly
Speaker 1: the same, but I do see a lot of similarities
Speaker 1: there in the way that this is unfolding. I think
Speaker 1: the best analysis is the difference between them is the
Speaker 1: like wind track beer track distinction, and that certainly is
Speaker 1: reflected in these fundraising numbers.
Speaker 2: Certainly, absolutely right, Let's go ahead to twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: some big news about the debates, about who's going to
Speaker 2: get allowed to debate, and so much more so, let's
Speaker 2: go and start putting these up on the screen, guys,
Speaker 2: because we're gonna go ahead and show people. First of all,
Speaker 2: whenever it comes to DeSantis, his team does not want
Speaker 2: NBC or CNN to co host the debate. Trump, however,
Speaker 2: is wary of Fox and of Murdoch's perceived turn to DeSantis.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't even call it perceived. I would say it's
Speaker 2: just absolutely correct. Then you've got CNN and NBC who
Speaker 2: are salivating to host the GOTV debate, but the deadlock
Speaker 2: is making uncertainty over whether any of it will literally
Speaker 2: happen at all now. As Alex Thompson here notes, Trump's
Speaker 2: campaign believes his opponents actually need the primary debates more
Speaker 2: than he does, obviously because he's behind them in the polls.
Speaker 2: If Trump doesn't show up, what does DeSantis do? Neither
Speaker 2: have committed currently to the first debate in August, and
Speaker 2: if they don't show up, what do the others do?
Speaker 2: This is a very important thing, and I will just
Speaker 2: say once again I do while I want Trump to
Speaker 2: show up further debates because I believe that people should debate,
Speaker 2: and I believe also, you know, it'd be fun to
Speaker 2: cover here on breaking points saif yes, just purely selfishly,
Speaker 2: if I were him, There's no way in hell I
Speaker 2: would show up to these debates, No way, because it
Speaker 2: is makes them all just seem like squabbling children who
Speaker 2: are going after his scraps. When you're the king, why
Speaker 2: put yourself in a position where somebody can come after you.
Speaker 2: It denigrates them to a lower status by just saying
Speaker 2: you're not even worth my time. I don't have to
Speaker 2: do this now. For DeSantis, this is very, very tricky.
Speaker 2: Do you show up to the debate where you become
Speaker 2: the center or attacks? Chris Christie needs to take out
Speaker 2: de Santis. He wants to become number two. But vig
Speaker 2: Ramaswami's got to take out De Santis. Nikki Haley has
Speaker 2: got to take out De Santis. That's why they're mostly
Speaker 2: all concentrating their fire on one another. What does DeSantis do?
Speaker 2: I think if Trump doesn't show up to the debate,
Speaker 2: DeSantis shouldn't either, because it's again a sign of strength
Speaker 2: of Nope, I'm the number two. You idiots can all
Speaker 2: squabble on stage if you want. For example, Nikki Haley
Speaker 2: hell a CNN TI Hall, nobody cares. Nobody cares because
Speaker 2: she's a low rated candidate. It's not a media event.
Speaker 2: He would basically turn Remember the when was it in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen the Republican primary debates where they had two
Speaker 2: debates the lower polls and then the diople. Yeah, their
Speaker 2: body of yindle and all them. Nobody cared. Nobody watched
Speaker 2: it at all. It was irrelevant. From a perspective, he
Speaker 2: needs to turn if Trump does not show up. That's
Speaker 2: what DeSantis should do. He should turn the GOP primary
Speaker 2: debates into a spectacle. Now, I once again want to say,
Speaker 2: I do think everybody should debate. I think it's important
Speaker 2: for a democracy, but unfortunately there is no requirement to
Speaker 2: do so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we should have a law, constitutional amendment,
Speaker 1: whatever needs to happen to make this required, because American
Speaker 1: people deserve to hear from the candidates, especially the candidates
Speaker 1: who want to be freaking president of the United States.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely an absurdity. I disagree on the DeSantis calculus here.
Speaker 1: So first of all, let me say that if I
Speaker 1: was the DeSantis team, I would be doing whatever I could,
Speaker 1: bending to whatever desires Trump has to try to persuade
Speaker 1: him to debate, because I think you need that. I
Speaker 1: think you need to be on stage with him to
Speaker 1: have a shot. Okay, so if Trump is like I
Speaker 1: would rather it's NBC. You may not like NBC or
Speaker 1: CNN or MSMBS or whatever. But if that's where he
Speaker 1: feels more comfortable, he's got the upper hand, he's got
Speaker 1: all the leverage, So I would bend to his wishes,
Speaker 1: even knowing that it is still unlikely that he is
Speaker 1: probably going to show up in debate. So that's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, Desantus has got to take a lot of
Speaker 1: risks here, you know. So is it risky for him
Speaker 1: to step on that debate stage with everybody else probably
Speaker 1: like guns blazing directly for him since he's the one
Speaker 1: that happens to be there, and they're all trying to
Speaker 1: position themselves to be the Trump alternative, and they're all
Speaker 1: basically too afraid to go directly after Donald Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a huge risk, especially for a guy who
Speaker 1: you know, frankly doesn't do all that well in unscripted situations.
Speaker 1: So yes, it's a risk. Do I think it's a
Speaker 1: risk he needs to take. I do, And it's at
Speaker 1: least a chance for him to again grab the media
Speaker 1: attention that he so desperately needs when Trump is typically
Speaker 1: sucking up all of the oxygen in the room. So
Speaker 1: I see it a little bit differently. I don't think
Speaker 1: DeSantis can afford to sit out those sorts of opportunities
Speaker 1: to get in front of cameras and try to persuade
Speaker 1: people that he is up to the task and that
Speaker 1: they should supplant the guy that they already really like,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, who was already president of the United States
Speaker 1: once with a newcomer that they like but aren't as
Speaker 1: sure or as passionate about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, look, maybe you're right. I truly don't know.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the rules and some of that too.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next part here, guys, because the
Speaker 2: rules are actually pretty important. This gets to some of
Speaker 2: the pitches that we are. Inside the NBC pitch, they
Speaker 2: say that they're making sure that they'll be seen as
Speaker 2: fair and you know, talking, and the De Santa's campaign
Speaker 2: is upset about the way NBC has previously covered them.
Speaker 2: CNN as well. Inside of their pitch they say that
Speaker 2: CNN can reach more conservatives than Box as well as
Speaker 2: independent voters, which is a joke.
Speaker 1: Cause this is absolutely okay true.
Speaker 2: Let's go to the next part here, guys, just so
Speaker 2: we can show everybody. What we can see here is
Speaker 2: that they DeSantis actually is making a case that he
Speaker 2: does not believe that corporate media should even be involved
Speaker 2: in the RNC process at all because quote, their whole
Speaker 2: goal is to make the Republican candidates as ridiculous as possible.
Speaker 2: So the last remaining contenders kind of are ABC News,
Speaker 2: CBS News, and PBS. Let's get a little bit to
Speaker 2: the rules here, because this is important. Let's go to
Speaker 2: the next one that we can show people. To qualify
Speaker 2: for the current debates, according to the RNC, candidates must
Speaker 2: poll at least one percent in three national polls or
Speaker 2: one percent in two national polls, one percent in one
Speaker 2: early state polls from two separate carve out states aka
Speaker 2: like Iowa, New Hampshire, and then a minimum of forty
Speaker 2: thousand unique donors with at least two hundred unique donors
Speaker 2: in twenty plus states, and pledge to not participate in
Speaker 2: non RNC debates and support the eventual nominee. So interesting
Speaker 2: for a couple of reasons. First of all, the polling
Speaker 2: at one percent and all of that, that's not difficult.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of candidates, But the forty thousand unique
Speaker 2: donors in twenty and then including two hundred donors across
Speaker 2: twenty different states, that's actually harder to do. Especially the
Speaker 2: forty thousand uniques. It means you cannot brute force your
Speaker 2: way or kind of rich guy your way into this.
Speaker 2: Forty thousand is just a lot of people, and it
Speaker 2: will definitely require some actual like support for your candidacy
Speaker 2: across the country. The other thing is, and I don't
Speaker 2: think a lot of people notice this, having to pledge
Speaker 2: to support the eventual nominee is a huge inclusion into
Speaker 2: the new debate rules because Trump famously, at the very
Speaker 2: first debate of the RNC, when they asked him, will
Speaker 2: you support the eventual nominee, did not raise his hand
Speaker 2: because he said, well, maybe maybe not. He still has
Speaker 2: never answered that question. There's no way, also in my mind,
Speaker 2: that he would even agree to that. So the RNC
Speaker 2: might have shot itself in the foot by making sure
Speaker 2: Crystal that Trump does not show up at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's certainly impossible. I mean, given that criteria,
Speaker 1: probably right now, possibly the only two that qualify based
Speaker 1: on the donor criteria are Trump and DeSantis. Maybe there's somebody,
Speaker 1: maybe a nicky Haley or somebody else may qualify right now,
Speaker 1: but that really is the barrier, is the donor numbers
Speaker 1: versus the polling numbers, because you know, even some of
Speaker 1: the lesser known contenders are going to at least get
Speaker 1: one percent in enough polls to be able to make
Speaker 1: the debate stage. So I do think that that is
Speaker 1: the bigger issue. But yeah, I mean Trump likes to
Speaker 1: keep his leverage. He's he is very unlikely to submit
Speaker 1: himself to that pledge. And you know, it's not a
Speaker 1: crazy universe to imagine that if DeSantis did by some
Speaker 1: you know, stroke of luck or fate or whatever when
Speaker 1: the Republican nomination, Trump would love to hang over their
Speaker 1: heads like, Okay, I'll run third party event and we'll
Speaker 1: see how that goes. So, you know, which is a
Speaker 1: real problem for DeSantis's core alone ability pitch as well,
Speaker 1: because you're gonna be a whole lot lesstable if Trump
Speaker 1: is out there intentionally playing the role of the spoiler.
Speaker 1: So I do think that might be a bridge that
Speaker 1: he's not willing to cross.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I actually saw Larry Elder apparently spoke to a
Speaker 2: reporter about this. He said he was kind of criticizing
Speaker 2: the forty thousand. He's like, oh, that's you know, so difficult,
Speaker 2: all of that, and it gets to you know, some
Speaker 2: of the difficulty. DeSantis and Trump obviously are going to
Speaker 2: have no problem hitting the forty thousand unique donors, and
Speaker 2: also people across with smaller candidates who even have pulled
Speaker 2: at one or two percent, people like Nikki Haley, Tim Scott,
Speaker 2: Vivid Ramaswami, Asa Hutchinson and all of them, they may
Speaker 2: have a real donor issue. And actually you're very likely
Speaker 2: to see them probably step up their online campaign efforts
Speaker 2: as these rules have now been announced. So let's all
Speaker 2: watch August. It's really not that far away before we
Speaker 2: get to the very first debate. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be fun. We're gonna have our
Speaker 1: new set, got room for panelists. It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Wait, all right, let's go to the next part. This
Speaker 2: is uh, Jack returns. Jack Dorsey has returned to Twitter.
Speaker 2: He's even got a blue check, so there's something going on.
Speaker 2: It certainly does. And one of the things he did
Speaker 2: whenever he surfaced for the first time on Twitter in
Speaker 2: quite a long time, let's go ahead and put this
Speaker 2: on the screen, was tweet he can and he will.
Speaker 2: To a YouTube video of RFK Junior appearing on YouTube,
Speaker 2: where it says Robert F. Kennedy argues he can and
Speaker 2: beat Trump. Somebody replied, are you endorsing or are you
Speaker 2: just predicting? And he said both, okay, so whatever that means.
Speaker 2: So I guess that means he is certainly endorsing him,
Speaker 2: since he did technically say that he would. He also
Speaker 2: tweeted out this video against Joe Biden shows you that
Speaker 2: this the moment that Biden fell, and he just said,
Speaker 2: open the democratic crimes and debates. This isn't fair to anyone.
Speaker 2: So clearly I did a video. I mean, obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: there's literally no question why the why there should be
Speaker 2: no democratic debate? RFK Junior and Mary and Williamson, anybody
Speaker 2: else really who can qualify absolutely has the right and
Speaker 2: really the responsibility, I think to challenge him and to
Speaker 2: ask him, like, why are you fit to remain in office?
Speaker 2: We're going to talk probably tomorrow, Crystal about this new
Speaker 2: effort by Biden insiders to prove that he actually, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's old, but he's not that old. He's he's a
Speaker 2: spry old chicken. We we promise, you know, he gets
Speaker 2: up at nine and works till six. And I'm like, uh,
Speaker 2: you mean like everybody else in the country. Okay, not
Speaker 2: all that inspiring. This also comes on the heels crystle
Speaker 2: of Elon announcing that Twitter will be hosting a space
Speaker 2: is actually later today with RFK Junior, moderated by Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Let's put this up there. Twitter spaces says, heads up,
Speaker 2: we're doing maintenance on our infrastructure to help us handle
Speaker 2: bigger spaces. There may be some minor turbulence in the
Speaker 2: next day for hanging with us, and Elon confirmed that
Speaker 2: the system is being upgraded and stress tested in advance
Speaker 2: of the RFK Junior interview on Monday, So big get
Speaker 2: for RFK Junior. He will be there at I believe
Speaker 2: it's Monday at two pm Eastern time, so a little
Speaker 2: bit after this show will air for most of the
Speaker 2: general public, and we'll have a big analysis for everybody
Speaker 2: tomorrow on what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Yeah. Elon after the DeSantis one, I think,
Speaker 1: in some like feeble effort to pretend like he's not
Speaker 1: biased in this race, was like, oh, of course I'll
Speaker 1: do spaces with any presidential contender. We'll see if that
Speaker 1: ends up being the case. I know that Marianne had
Speaker 1: replied like Hey, I do one too, and I don't
Speaker 1: think she's heard back yet, so we'll see if that actually,
Speaker 1: you know, invitation extends to everyone. But I think the
Speaker 1: more that RFK Junior or Mariann are able to get
Speaker 1: high profile endorsements, high profile interviews where they're in the
Speaker 1: public consciousness, I mean, this is the whole plan from
Speaker 1: the DNA is basically like, We're just gonna pretend you
Speaker 1: don't exist. We're going to pretend you're not quote unquote
Speaker 1: serious or not quote unquote qualified. We're gonna pretend like
Speaker 1: Biden has no real competition. And so, yes, you may
Speaker 1: be nervous about the fact that he you know, can't
Speaker 1: walk across the stage, and that he's in clear mental
Speaker 1: decline and that he only works from like twelve to
Speaker 1: four Monday through Thursday. You may be worried about him
Speaker 1: serving as president at eighty six years old, but sorry,
Speaker 1: you just don't have another choice. And so the more
Speaker 1: that you have this kind of visibility for his challengers,
Speaker 1: the more difficult it becomes for them to sustain that narrative.
Speaker 1: And we saw this playbook a number of times in
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary last time around, where the very first
Speaker 1: phases we're just gonna pretend you don't exist. Even with Bernie,
Speaker 1: who had been you know, so like so prominent and
Speaker 1: has came so close in twenty sixteen if they hadn't
Speaker 1: rigged the primary, even with him, they tried to just
Speaker 1: pretend you didn't exist at the beginning of the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty primary. And then you get to a certain critical
Speaker 1: mass which like, okay, well we can't ignore you completely anymore,
Speaker 1: so now we're going to smear you. Now we're going
Speaker 1: to attack you, like that's the next phase. And I
Speaker 1: think we're rapidly approaching that phase because it just becomes
Speaker 1: more and more difficult to deny that there are other
Speaker 1: alternatives that people don't have to stick with Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: that there should be a competitive primary process. And so
Speaker 1: I actually love to see Jack, you know, coming out
Speaker 1: in talking about the Democratic primary, calling for debates. And
Speaker 1: we need a lot more people like him who have
Speaker 1: prominent positions to point out the fundamental hypocrisy of a
Speaker 1: party that is run around with their clothes on fire
Speaker 1: talking about the sanctity of democracy and then are doing
Speaker 1: everything they can to short circuit the public having an
Speaker 1: actual democratic choice within their own primary process. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I just saw an article this morning from I think
Speaker 1: it was ABC that was, like, you know, so far
Speaker 1: the Democratic primary has been successful at shutting down left
Speaker 1: wing critics who say there should be a debate. But
Speaker 1: the longer this goes on and the more the polls
Speaker 1: build for or RFK Junior in particular and Marion as well,
Speaker 1: the more that that builds, the more difficult it's going
Speaker 1: to become for them to hold this position that they
Speaker 1: have right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you said, let's go ahead and put B
Speaker 2: seven guys please up on the screen. You reference the
Speaker 2: Maryann Williamson tweet that she replied, and she says, Hi, Elon,
Speaker 2: you had offered a space discussion to all presidential candider
Speaker 2: to try to get in touch. I would love to
Speaker 2: take you up on the offer. We'll see maybe RFK
Speaker 2: Junior we'll bring it up there as well. And yeah, look,
Speaker 2: I actually as bad as the DeSantis one went, I
Speaker 2: genuinely hope this one goes well because I think people
Speaker 2: like this deserve a forum and a chance, and I
Speaker 2: want to see more of them, and you know, if
Speaker 2: they can, maybe they should even publish it as a podcast.
Speaker 2: I actually hope that there are no technical glitches, so
Speaker 2: then we can just clip out things that he says
Speaker 2: and we can talk about the editorial rather and so
Speaker 2: can other media outlets rather than you know, focusing on
Speaker 2: all that. So right, anyway, we'll see, be right.
Speaker 1: And I would still never recommend to any candidate that
Speaker 1: you launch on Twitter spaces, not only for the technical
Speaker 1: glitter reasons, like it was poorly conceived of to begin with.
Speaker 1: It's set, the audio quality sounds like crap. It's a
Speaker 1: very impersonal kind of forum. It just doesn't lend itself
Speaker 1: to the sort of like staging that you would want
Speaker 1: to make your big first impression on the country, but
Speaker 1: as a forum to have a discussion and have, you know,
Speaker 1: high profile and get asked some tough questions. And yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: like I would recommend this to anyone, especially candidates who
Speaker 1: are being shut out completely of the mainstream press and
Speaker 1: who are they're trying to just completely invisibilize. If you've
Speaker 1: gott an opportunity to grab some attention, you do it,
Speaker 1: even if there are risks inherent in that. But yeah,
Speaker 1: don't don't launch on Twitter spaces would probably be the
Speaker 1: advice here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 1: One. Okay, the same time, we've got some other social
Speaker 1: media platform or I guess content platform news for you. Famously,
Speaker 1: YouTube has been very aggressive about taking down any content
Speaker 1: that suggests the twenty twenty Elie was stolen, even sometimes
Speaker 1: when that content is trying to debunk those claims. Well,
Speaker 1: they have just announced that they are changing that policy.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: is actually a big deal, so they say, scoop. YouTube
Speaker 1: reverses misinformation policy to allow US election denialism. In reversal
Speaker 1: of its election integrity policy, YouTube will leave up content
Speaker 1: that says fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty presidential election and other US elections. The company confirmed
Speaker 1: why it matters. YouTube established the policy in December twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: after enough states had certified the twenty twenty election results.
Speaker 1: In part of their comments here from YouTube, they said,
Speaker 1: two years, tens of thousands of video removals, and one
Speaker 1: election cycle later, we recognized it was time to reevaluate
Speaker 1: the effects of this policy in today's change landscape. Now,
Speaker 1: the way Axios presents this saga is very like, you know,
Speaker 1: they make it sound bad that the decision was changed
Speaker 1: but people have to understand the reality of how this
Speaker 1: was enforced because even you know, our old outlet, The Hill,
Speaker 1: they played some Trump clip where he's talking about a
Speaker 1: bunch of nonsense. They're not endorsing it, They're just trying
Speaker 1: to cover one of the most prominent people in political life,
Speaker 1: and their content is getting taken down and banned. And
Speaker 1: it's not just them, I mean this happened. This also
Speaker 1: happened to Kyle where he was trying to do a
Speaker 1: segment debunking some of these claims and it gets hit
Speaker 1: and taken down. So the way that this policy was
Speaker 1: applied was horrendous and counterproductive. And also, you know, we
Speaker 1: have a commitment here to free speech and anti censorship. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the way to go about these things is to debunk,
Speaker 1: to debate, to you know, meet these like spurious claims
Speaker 1: with facts and truth, which is what we tried to do.
Speaker 1: We went through painstakingly all of the lawsuits that were
Speaker 1: filed and tried to explain to people, here is why
Speaker 1: there's no there there. That's the approach to this, not
Speaker 1: just blanket takedown. So you know, selfishly, I'm very glad,
Speaker 1: I'm very happy about it because we always had to
Speaker 1: be very nervous anytime, Like for example, when we took
Speaker 1: Trump's launch speech for his campaign, we were very concerned
Speaker 1: about whatever he says they could hit us with, even
Speaker 1: though it's not like we're endorsing these claims. But if
Speaker 1: you don't come out and say, let me debunk claim
Speaker 1: by claim by claim, and even if you do that,
Speaker 1: they may still take it down.
Speaker 2: It's so ridiculous. Look, Crystal, you and I have said
Speaker 2: this directly to youtube' space, you know, and time and
Speaker 2: time again, I've been very outspoken about this policy and
Speaker 2: why I hate it, which is that the idea that
Speaker 2: broadcasting what a person of public interest says is an
Speaker 2: endorsement is ridiculous. It's ludicrous on its face. When you're
Speaker 2: in the news, you play what people say and then
Speaker 2: you talk about it. You can say afterwards if you
Speaker 2: want to, whether this is wrong or not. But also
Speaker 2: I even object to the idea that we are supposed
Speaker 2: to be compelled to fact check what we it is
Speaker 2: not we are allowed to program our show in any
Speaker 2: way that we want. And also, yeah, look you can
Speaker 2: hate it. You can hate it if there are right
Speaker 2: wing YouTubers out there who are doing videos about how
Speaker 2: the twin election was stolen. But if you set a
Speaker 2: policy about trying to ban that type of stuff, there
Speaker 2: will come a time where soon, maybe in the future,
Speaker 2: you have questions about election mishaps or something going on
Speaker 2: in this country and you try to do a video
Speaker 2: on it, and it is going to get taken down,
Speaker 2: or they can set a policy in which they adjudicate
Speaker 2: what is correct and what is not. At the end
Speaker 2: of the day, it is up to the legal system
Speaker 2: and it is up to our actual viewers. I'm doing
Speaker 2: a whole monologue today, by the way, about this about
Speaker 2: fact checking, community notes and Twitter, and it's so important
Speaker 2: for people to understand platforms have no business adjudicating truth,
Speaker 2: especially whenever it comes to small c civics issues like democracy,
Speaker 2: like voting, like elections. These are belong to the public.
Speaker 2: They belong to all of us. They are our elections.
Speaker 2: Our public officials set the rules and the things and
Speaker 2: the debates around them, and if people lie about them,
Speaker 2: well a that's on them. And why I hate this
Speaker 2: as well is what was the reason that all these
Speaker 2: Republicans lost in twenty twenty Crystal or twenty twenty two, Crystal.
Speaker 2: Stop the steal. People aren't stupid. A lot of people
Speaker 2: hate it. They hate it so much drives them completely insane.
Speaker 2: That was a literal democratic check on something that people
Speaker 2: did not like, and obviously Republicans did not make enough
Speaker 2: of a case that it was true enough and in
Speaker 2: fact made it such enough of a case simply vote
Speaker 2: against them that many of them lost across this country.
Speaker 2: It is so important for people to understand that democracy
Speaker 2: itself is the single best check against lies, against disinformation,
Speaker 2: and the idea that you need some overall thing to
Speaker 2: come on top and to tell you what's true and
Speaker 2: what's not for people like us, or how to run
Speaker 2: our business, for people like us, how to run our content.
Speaker 2: I would never presume to do that to anybody. So anyway,
Speaker 2: I'm very glad to see this policy. Person. My advice
Speaker 2: to YouTube. My advice to YouTube is stay out of
Speaker 2: this game, stay out fact check label. You know, even today,
Speaker 2: every once in a while, now I said it, this
Speaker 2: video will have some stupid COVID warning for what linked
Speaker 2: to Wikipedia. You know, it's like, it's like, how is
Speaker 2: that useful to anybody who is watching this? You know,
Speaker 2: it's one of those where the the entire It's a
Speaker 2: narcissism of these platforms to think that some stupid Wikipedia
Speaker 2: type label is going to in any way influence.
Speaker 1: Or change well, they don't actually think that. They just
Speaker 1: want to cover their asses for advertisers. That's that's all
Speaker 1: it is. They want to be able to say to
Speaker 1: advertisers like, oh, we put in a warning and here's
Speaker 1: the link and whatever, so that they can feel comfy
Speaker 1: having their ads run whatever. That's what it's really all about.
Speaker 1: I do have a theory about why they changed the
Speaker 1: policy now, which is Trump just did his big CNN
Speaker 1: town hall where he spotted a bunch of you know,
Speaker 1: election nonsense, and it just becomes really clear, like, okay,
Speaker 1: so are you going to hit CNN because they didn't
Speaker 1: robut every single claim in real time or whatever? Are
Speaker 1: you going to take their videos down? It just becomes
Speaker 1: really clear. Number one, they always have had a different
Speaker 1: policy about what corporate media can get a with and
Speaker 1: when an independent media can get away with. And number two,
Speaker 1: I mean, the presidential cycle is underway. Are we not
Speaker 1: supposed to play Trump's speeches or take his comments live
Speaker 1: for fear that he may say something that is ludicrous
Speaker 1: and incorrect. That's just a preposterous standard that makes no
Speaker 1: sense ever, but especially makes no sense when you're in
Speaker 1: the middle of a presidential election season. So I sort
Speaker 1: of think that the CNN town hall may have been
Speaker 1: the breaking point where they realize, like, all right, this
Speaker 1: policy doesn't really make sense. It's not really sustainable. Our
Speaker 1: hypocrisy and our like double standards here are being too
Speaker 1: blatantly exposed. So we gotta change course. We got to
Speaker 1: make a different decision.
Speaker 2: Listen, I absolutely hope. So it's a stupid policy for
Speaker 2: all these people stay out. Let the public look at
Speaker 2: the information, everything that is out there and make up
Speaker 2: their own mind. You have no quote unquote responsibility or
Speaker 2: even obligation to try and quote unquote fact check whatever
Speaker 2: is out there. That's not your job. It's the job
Speaker 2: of the people. And the sooner that people understand that,
Speaker 2: the better. It drives me absolutely crazy every time I
Speaker 2: see stuff like this.
Speaker 1: All right, we have a big Supreme Court decision that
Speaker 1: we wanted to break down for you all that could
Speaker 1: have huge ramifications about workers' ability to strike. Let's put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen and then I'll tell you
Speaker 1: some of the backstories. So this is from more perfect union,
Speaker 1: they say breaking. The Supreme Court has ruled in favor
Speaker 1: of a concrete company that wanted to sue a union
Speaker 1: because a strike cost them money. The eight to one
Speaker 1: decision means the company, Glacier Northwest Incorporated, can sue the
Speaker 1: union over a strike where truck drivers left wet concrete
Speaker 1: in their trucks. So we covered the story previously, but
Speaker 1: just to remind everybody the backstory here. What happened is
Speaker 1: you had workers represented by a Teamsters local who were
Speaker 1: in the middle of negotiations with this company, Glacier Northwest,
Speaker 1: and those negotiations were not bearing fruit. The union was dissatisfied,
Speaker 1: the workers were dissatisfied, and so they decide to go
Speaker 1: on strike. This one does. This is the way that
Speaker 1: if you're in a union, that you leverage the power
Speaker 1: that you have as a worker in the fact that
Speaker 1: the company needs your labor in order to succeed. That's
Speaker 1: the way you leverage your power. So they walk off
Speaker 1: the job at a time that was after the I
Speaker 1: think warning truck drivers had already gone and they had
Speaker 1: wet cement in their trucks. Now they actually tried to
Speaker 1: mitigate some of the economic harm to the company, which
Speaker 1: I would argue they're not necessarily required to do. But
Speaker 1: they sought to mitigate some of the economic harm by
Speaker 1: keeping the drums in the truck running so that that
Speaker 1: wet concrete wouldn't just instant what concrete wouldn't just instantly
Speaker 1: harden and damage the trucks. Yet, because they were on strike,
Speaker 1: there's still was some economic harm to the company because
Speaker 1: they were unable to deliver that that material, and so
Speaker 1: they lost money on the fact they were unable to
Speaker 1: deliver that material, and I think they just had to
Speaker 1: dispose of it ultimately. And they also argue that there
Speaker 1: was some risk there could have been damage to the
Speaker 1: trucks if it had been allowed to harden in the barrels.
Speaker 1: So Glacier said, all right, we're going to sue you
Speaker 1: the union because the workers went on strike and caused
Speaker 1: us economic harm. Well, a state court said, no, you
Speaker 1: can't do this, because number one, this isn't really even
Speaker 1: our jurisdiction. This is we're talking about federal laws here
Speaker 1: that you know are in play. The National Labor Relations Board,
Speaker 1: they're the ones that should investigate and should decide whether
Speaker 1: this was like egregious behavior on behalf of the union
Speaker 1: or not. This went all the way up to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and that's how you end up with this
Speaker 1: eight to one decision that now sends it back down
Speaker 1: and says, yes, you can actually sue this union over
Speaker 1: the damages from this strike. Now, let me say a
Speaker 1: couple of things. First of all, law clearly recognizes that
Speaker 1: if you are a worker engaged in a strike, you
Speaker 1: can't engage in violence, you can't engage in direct vandalism,
Speaker 1: and those sorts of things are out of bounds. And
Speaker 1: you know there can be suits in state courts. That's
Speaker 1: like very clear cut. But why this is so troubling
Speaker 1: and so damaging is now you're sending a message to
Speaker 1: all companies and all corporations that if you're economically harmed
Speaker 1: at all by a strike, you may have an ability
Speaker 1: to sue the workers and sue the union. You can
Speaker 1: imagine what kind of a chilling effect that we'll have
Speaker 1: too on workers who are considering striking. Well, the whole
Speaker 1: point of a strike is to use your labor, I mean,
Speaker 1: to cause some economic harm that puts pressure on the
Speaker 1: employer to come to the negotiating table and bargain so
Speaker 1: that's why this is such a potentially damaging decision. The
Speaker 1: one dissenting justice here was Katanji Brown Jackson. She argued,
Speaker 1: the majority is inserting itself into an assessment of labor
Speaker 1: disputes that is lawfully the purview of the National Labor
Speaker 1: Relations Board, and that the court is overstepping their jurisdiction.
Speaker 1: That's basically what the State court had argued as well.
Speaker 1: She also argued that the court is putting the onus
Speaker 1: on workers and their union to avert any economic damage
Speaker 1: to Glacier the company, when it was actually on the
Speaker 1: company to take steps to negotiate in good faith with
Speaker 1: the union and try to mitigate their own losses. Put
Speaker 1: this next article from Reuter's up on the screen. This
Speaker 1: gives you a sense of some of the arguments here
Speaker 1: that were made by the justices on either side of
Speaker 1: this issue. Their headline is US Supreme Court hands defeat
Speaker 1: to organize labor in truck or strike case. So Amy
Speaker 1: Connie Barrett is the author of the majority ruling. She
Speaker 1: said the union's actions had not only destroyed the concrete,
Speaker 1: but had also quote posed a risk of foreseeable, aggravated
Speaker 1: and imminent harm to Glacier's trucks. That harm did not
Speaker 1: come to pass, but she's saying it could have come
Speaker 1: to pass. And she says because the union took affirmative
Speaker 1: steps to endanger Glacier's property rather than reasonable precautions to
Speaker 1: mitigate that risk, the National Labor Relations Act does not
Speaker 1: arguably protect its conduct. Again, that should be left to
Speaker 1: the Natural Labor Relations Board to adjudicate. But that's what
Speaker 1: they argued. And just to give you a little bit
Speaker 1: of a taste of the katanji on Jackson dessent, she said,
Speaker 1: and I thought this was well put. Workers are not
Speaker 1: indentured servants bound to continue laboring until any planned work
Speaker 1: stoppage would be as painless as possible for their master.
Speaker 1: So that is the way that she was arguing. The
Speaker 1: other side of this last thing to note here, Sager,
Speaker 1: guess which side the administration took. They took the side
Speaker 1: of the company and said they should have the ability
Speaker 1: to sue. It should go back down to the stakehoord
Speaker 1: and they should be able to adjudicate it. There So,
Speaker 1: mister most pro worker, pro union president and history, once
Speaker 1: again stabbing workers in the back.
Speaker 2: This is bad for a variety of reasons, because what
Speaker 2: people don't understand is that even the standing the ability
Speaker 2: to sue, for example, we would and every other media
Speaker 2: company on earth would cover things dramatically differently if we
Speaker 2: did not know that the bar was incredibly high in
Speaker 2: order to try and sue people who were in the media.
Speaker 2: Whenever you're talking about public officials, you would basically have
Speaker 2: a British type system or in many of the other
Speaker 2: Western countries, where they can effectively file a complaint against
Speaker 2: you for anything, and the First Amendment and the level
Speaker 2: of legal protection does not apply to the media. What
Speaker 2: ends up happening a fusion of the state and of
Speaker 2: the media. Now we already kind of live in that system,
Speaker 2: but we have at least more free speech protections for
Speaker 2: people who want to use them should they try. The
Speaker 2: threat of legal action itself, Ask anybody who is in business,
Speaker 2: the threat itself is chilling whenever it comes to speech.
Speaker 2: The same can be said here just to standing, the
Speaker 2: ability to sue will and can guide future strike actions
Speaker 2: which are dramatically in favor of the company. So it's
Speaker 2: very obvious here who benefits from this change in the
Speaker 2: from this change, like in the current way that we
Speaker 2: look at things and will have a bad effect, especially
Speaker 2: is kicking people when they're down, because you know, they're
Speaker 2: trying to increase the unemployment rate already and to try
Speaker 2: and limit you know, whatever power the workers had in
Speaker 2: a tight labor market. So it really is it's especially
Speaker 2: bad timing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's disgraceful to see that, you know,
Speaker 1: the uniparty at work here, that you have only one
Speaker 1: descent from Kataji bron Jackson. And kudos to her for,
Speaker 1: you know, in a very well argued descent, I would say,
Speaker 1: and very strongly worded, but ultimately she's just one person
Speaker 1: on the court. You know, there's a lot of talk
Speaker 1: about like the liberals and the conservatives on the court,
Speaker 1: but far too often the two sides tend to agree
Speaker 1: when it comes to bolstering capital and crushing labor. As
Speaker 1: regular viewers of the show or you know, regular people
Speaker 1: who exist in America know the law is already overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: on the side of the bosses, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to the right to organize and now the right to strike.
Speaker 1: So these little levers of power and leverage that working
Speaker 1: class people actually have. I don't think it's an accident
Speaker 1: that at a time when you have this gigantic gulf
Speaker 1: between huge support for labor, huge support for workers, huge
Speaker 1: support for organized labor and unions in particular, but you
Speaker 1: have such low union density. I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of companies are seeing, you know, the movement at Starbucks,
Speaker 1: the movement at Amazon, at Arii, at Chipotle, all these
Speaker 1: places across the country, and they're very nervous. So this
Speaker 1: gives the Supreme Court a chance to sort of check
Speaker 1: workers at a time when union support is super high,
Speaker 1: but you still have very low union density. So it's
Speaker 1: an attempt to try to keep them from gaining any
Speaker 1: sort of traction within the American economy. I think it
Speaker 1: could be really devastating, because you know, every strike is
Speaker 1: going to cause some economic harm to the company, and
Speaker 1: now they've opened the door for no matter. Let's say
Speaker 1: you're you know, more perfect Union actually did a great
Speaker 1: video on this, but that I recommend to people. So
Speaker 1: let's say you're a Starbucks worker and you go on strike,
Speaker 1: which a number of locations they have. Let's say the
Speaker 1: milk spoils. Let's say they lose some customers. Whatever happens now, Starbucks,
Speaker 1: Howard schultzen Coke can come out and suit the workers
Speaker 1: and sue the union because they dare to voice, you know,
Speaker 1: to exercise their right to strike, to demand better conditions, fare, wages,
Speaker 1: whatever is that they're after. So I think it could
Speaker 1: be incredibly damaging, really devastating, and you know, it's not surprising,
Speaker 1: but it's really sad to see the Biden administration and
Speaker 1: almost all of the liberal and all of the conservative
Speaker 1: justices team up to crush workers in this way.
Speaker 2: Yep, absolutely agreed on that, Crystal.
Speaker 1: All right, have some big media news for you guys.
Speaker 1: Chuck Todd moving on from Meet the Press. Of course,
Speaker 1: that is the Sunday show. He also does Meet the
Speaker 1: Press daily. Does he still do that? Oh it's online only.
Speaker 1: That was already scores scores of people watching him over
Speaker 1: there on on Peacock streaming. So he is moving on
Speaker 1: his out from Meet the Press. Kristen Welker, longtime NBC
Speaker 1: News reporter and journalists, will be replacing him. There. Let's
Speaker 1: take a list into how he announced it.
Speaker 5: Welcome back. I have a personal announcement. Well today it's
Speaker 5: not my final show. This is going to be my
Speaker 5: final summer here at Meet the Press. It's been an
Speaker 5: amazing nearly decade long run. I'm pretty really proud of
Speaker 5: what this team and I have built over the last
Speaker 5: decade and frankly the last fifteen plus years that I've been.
Speaker 2: Here at NBC.
Speaker 1: So Sager, you know, are you okay? Like, how are you?
Speaker 1: How are you handling this news? I know you're pretty baraff.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what said, Meet the Press was a
Speaker 2: great franchise. It was, though it was one of those
Speaker 2: things which it belonged to the monoculture era and we
Speaker 2: should have just left it there the.
Speaker 1: Idea, so Well said, yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 2: At that time, there were only three networks you know,
Speaker 2: sorry there were three yeah, three big networks, three cable channels.
Speaker 2: There was not a variety of ways for the public
Speaker 2: to get information from public officials. The Sunday Show was
Speaker 2: the main format in order to interview these people to
Speaker 2: get you know, Iraq war and all that stuff, get
Speaker 2: it out there. And Tim Russert was he was okay,
Speaker 2: you know, in my opinion, I don't think he was
Speaker 2: like the god that people think that he wi was.
Speaker 1: I actually an effective interviewer though.
Speaker 2: He was, But he also let a lot of things
Speaker 2: slide during Iraq which I don't think it should be
Speaker 2: forgiven for so anyway, I'll I'll let it. I'll just
Speaker 2: leave it and say I think he was a little
Speaker 2: bit too cozy, but yeah, he was a decent interviewer,
Speaker 2: I think when he wanted to be, and we should
Speaker 2: have just left it there After he died, it was sad.
Speaker 2: But from that point forward the franchise tried to use
Speaker 2: the Gravitas in an ever changing way. It was basically
Speaker 2: two thousand and six onward, the Internet comes and absolutely explodes.
Speaker 2: You have a variety of different ways that officials can
Speaker 2: get the word out. The Sunday Show continues to diminish,
Speaker 2: and then now at this point, even putting in somebody new,
Speaker 2: it just doesn't have the same power that it once did.
Speaker 2: I mean, the idea is is that the Sunday Show
Speaker 2: was this like prestige time slot in TV. And don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong, and it still can and does compel
Speaker 2: big interviews every once in a while, but it's usually
Speaker 2: legacy figures people like George Stephanopolos and others who will
Speaker 2: get those big scores, and it just doesn't matter in
Speaker 2: the way that it once did. So I think also
Speaker 2: that Chuck Todd and NBC also did damage to the
Speaker 2: brand by trying to turn it into a daily show,
Speaker 2: basically relegating it, you know, once again to Cable then
Speaker 2: the cancel it to move it to TV or to
Speaker 2: move it online, which shows just how unimportant it really is.
Speaker 2: And you know it like it dies with a whim
Speaker 2: with a with a whisper, like you know, with a whimper.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, it goes out. It should have died a
Speaker 2: long time ago.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, and it will. It will continue on
Speaker 1: in a lessened form. You know. Kristen Welker actually like
Speaker 1: no problem with her on a personal level. She seems
Speaker 1: like a really nice lady and I think people genuinely,
Speaker 1: genuinely like seem to like her, that her colleagues that
Speaker 1: work with her at NBC. This is also not though
Speaker 1: like a blockbuster marquee choice, and it to me is
Speaker 1: in line with the philosophy of managed to cline that
Speaker 1: you have seen implemented at both at you know, MSNBC,
Speaker 1: Fox News and Cianna and basically where when they're big
Speaker 1: stars depart, it's not like they're looking to make that
Speaker 1: new big deal and bring in something that's going to
Speaker 1: be game changing, They're just kind of bringing in someone
Speaker 1: who's safe, who can sustain. So, you know, the classic
Speaker 1: example is over at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, their star for
Speaker 1: years and years, the quarterback of that whole lineup, the
Speaker 1: only person who really was able to sort of consistently
Speaker 1: bring in a ratings charge. She significantly diminishes her role.
Speaker 1: She's only on there once a week, and they bring
Speaker 1: in Alex Wagner, who's just like, you know, she's a placeholder.
Speaker 1: She's safe, she's comfortable, she's not going to rock the boat.
Speaker 1: She can keep, you know, whatever audience is handed to
Speaker 1: her from. I think it's Chris Hayes, who's at the
Speaker 1: eight pm hours. She can kind of hold on to
Speaker 1: that audience more or less and hand the ball off
Speaker 1: to whoever comes. They're not making, you know, they're not
Speaker 1: shooting for the moon anymore, and I think the choice
Speaker 1: of host here with Kristen Welker reflects that as well.
Speaker 1: This is not a household name, this is not huge
Speaker 1: star power, this isn't a marquee deal. It was sort
Speaker 1: of an afterthought in terms of how this was sold
Speaker 1: and how this was even mentioned. Your point about the
Speaker 1: relevant of the Sunday Shows, I think is also really
Speaker 1: well taken, and in some ways, I mean, part of
Speaker 1: this is not Chuck Todd's fault, right, it's like structural
Speaker 1: changes in the media media ecosystem. But then the fact
Speaker 1: that you have this just like very standard, establishment friendly,
Speaker 1: not particularly talented person who's at the helm, that doesn't
Speaker 1: help anything. One thing I will say, this is consistent
Speaker 1: with the block we just did, the conversation we just
Speaker 1: had about debates and how you actually need politicians held
Speaker 1: more to account and willing to subject themselves more to interviews.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem too, is that they're just less
Speaker 1: likely to the big politicians are less likely to sit
Speaker 1: for these interviews, so that makes it less relevant, which
Speaker 1: is a shame and a degradation of democracy. And then
Speaker 1: the other reason they're less relevant is there's just, you know,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of interest in helding their feet
Speaker 1: to the fire. So, in a strange sense, what the
Speaker 1: Sunday Shows were originally intended to do, I think we
Speaker 1: need more than ever in American politics, in American media.
Speaker 1: It's just that these shows are not really capable of
Speaker 1: being the same function that perhaps they once did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just one of those where the format was
Speaker 2: derivative of the time and they thought that it was
Speaker 2: because of them, and it wasn't. You know. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like you said, like Chuck Todd, in some ways it's
Speaker 2: not his fault, but I mean, it certainly doesn't help
Speaker 2: that one of the most boring individuals to ever be
Speaker 2: on television. But you know, that kind of gets to
Speaker 2: what in the old times you could not even be
Speaker 2: all that good, and you could still be, you know,
Speaker 2: commanding a massive and a large presence. But today that's
Speaker 2: just not how it's gonna work, and people have options.
Speaker 2: DeSantis literally hasn't done a single corporate interview. You know,
Speaker 2: even Joe Biden actually was just reading, is the first
Speaker 2: president since Dwight D. Eisenhower not to do an interview
Speaker 2: with The New York Times. But he has done with Substack.
Speaker 2: He has done one with you know, what was that
Speaker 2: guy's name, Brian something.
Speaker 1: I forget his name, Oh, Brian Tyler Cohen.
Speaker 2: That guy, Brian Tyler Cowen has it as a Biden interview.
Speaker 2: I did this whenever I was actually, I'll be honest,
Speaker 2: this was my core pitch whenever I was in a
Speaker 2: White House correspondent I went to the Trump White House
Speaker 2: and I said, hey, you guys say you hate the
Speaker 2: New York Times, You're always sucking up to them. I'm like,
Speaker 2: what about new media? What about people who are on
Speaker 2: the internet, people like me? And they were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's a good point. You should do it. And so
Speaker 2: like that, it goes to when politicians have options, they're
Speaker 2: going to use them. They're going to play people against
Speaker 2: each other, and they're going to get the voice out
Speaker 2: in any way that they need to and to reach
Speaker 2: the most amount of people. Some of that today does
Speaker 2: include linear TV, but a lot of it includes online.
Speaker 2: And yeah, you know, as long as that's the reality,
Speaker 2: these shows are just not going to survive. There'll be
Speaker 2: in a period of managed decline.
Speaker 1: Yeah, politicians use that new ecosystem to just seek out
Speaker 1: friendly interviews. Like if you're Joe Biden and you struggle
Speaker 1: to like formulate a complete sentence, which listen I relate
Speaker 1: to sometimes personally, you're not going to go and subject
Speaker 1: yourself to a tough interview. Now I'm not saying Chuck
Speaker 1: Todd was going to give you that tough interview, but
Speaker 1: you're going to find someone who's really just going to
Speaker 1: be like, tell me how amazing you are and did
Speaker 1: you accomplished so much with such terrible you know, Republicans
Speaker 1: in Congress, And if you're Rond de Santis, you're going
Speaker 1: to do the same on the other side. So it's
Speaker 1: it is that part of it. Even though the broader
Speaker 1: independent media ecosystem obviously like I celebrate. I think that's
Speaker 1: a very positive move forward. I think watching these old
Speaker 1: dinosaurs die is all to the better. But the fact
Speaker 1: that politicians use this new ecosystem to exempt themselves from
Speaker 1: any sort of challenging public scrutiny, that's a real loss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you are absolutely correct, Crystal wouldn't take
Speaker 2: a look at So.
Speaker 1: Guys, we've got a potential new twenty twenty four contender
Speaker 1: that Wall Street is clamoring for on the Democratic side.
Speaker 1: This is actually like you literally can't make this up.
Speaker 1: So you guys might recall soccer and I actually recently
Speaker 1: covered this Wall Street Journal article talking about how sad
Speaker 1: they were to see a Trump Biden rematch, which look relatable.
Speaker 1: All of us are not that excited about that. But
Speaker 1: the reason that they're upset about it is because they
Speaker 1: don't think these two men are friendly in enough to
Speaker 1: Wall Street which is just patently insane. And buried in
Speaker 1: that article, which I barely even noticed at the time,
Speaker 1: was them floating Jamie Diamond, CEO of of course Chase Bank,
Speaker 1: the biggest bank in the country, maybe the world, certainly
Speaker 1: the country, as a potential presidential contender. Put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. So here
Speaker 1: was the quote. They say, Jamie Diamond, whose name has
Speaker 1: swirled as a potential candidate for years, recently got an
Speaker 1: earful from a fellow billionaire who wishes the JP Morgan
Speaker 1: Chase CEO would run. According to people familiar with the matter. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I should have taken more not of that when it
Speaker 1: came out, because usually these little nuggets buried in this
Speaker 1: type of report have a lot more meaning than is
Speaker 1: initially laid out. And next thing you know, Jamie Diamond
Speaker 1: himself is on Bloomberg, which is of course the television
Speaker 1: station of the ultra wealthy, and he gets to ask
Speaker 1: specifically about whether he would consider running for president or
Speaker 1: another public office, and interestingly, he doesn't exactly rule it out.
Speaker 6: Jamie, I know last week you talked a lot about
Speaker 6: succession or about your position that you're not talking about
Speaker 6: retirement right now. I do need to ask you, though,
Speaker 6: And your name has been bandied about for years about
Speaker 6: public office. I mean, I don't think Wall Street's too
Speaker 6: pleased about the potential Trump versus Biden runoff next year.
Speaker 6: Is it any Has that scenario ever crossed your mind
Speaker 6: that you would run for public office or even accept
Speaker 6: a cabinet position.
Speaker 7: You know, obviously it's crossed my mind because people mention
Speaker 7: things to you and stuff like that. I love my
Speaker 7: country and maybe one day I'll serve my country in
Speaker 7: one capacity or another. But I love what I do.
Speaker 7: I think, Jaden, we're going to do a great job
Speaker 7: for helping Americans, helping countries around the world. And this
Speaker 7: is my job. This is what I'm going to do,
Speaker 7: and I'm quite happy doing it. I still the energy
Speaker 7: to do what I mentioned. You know that when you don't,
Speaker 7: I think people should give up the job. You've got
Speaker 7: a fabulous management team where I really enjoy working with.
Speaker 1: So I'm here, so you know. There, he says, I
Speaker 1: love my country. Maybe one day I'll serve my country.
Speaker 1: He says that he's thought about it. It's cost his mind. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's sort of holding out the possibility here. But
Speaker 1: you also had a major Wall Street dude hedge funder
Speaker 1: Bill Ackman. He took to Twitter he posted a long
Speaker 1: thread begging Jamie Diamond to run for PRESDA. We'll put
Speaker 1: this up on the screen. I'm not going to read
Speaker 1: the whole thing because it's honestly, it's so embarrassing, but
Speaker 1: it's also really lengthy. So he says in part, Jamie
Speaker 1: Diamond is one of the world's most respected business leaders. Politically,
Speaker 1: he's a centrist. He's pro business and pro free enterprise,
Speaker 1: but also supportive of well designed social programs and rational
Speaker 1: tax policies that can help the less fortunate. He's extremely smart, thoughtful, pragmatic,
Speaker 1: knows how to bring opposing parties together, etc. Et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. He goes on to say that Jamie Diamond
Speaker 1: is the leader that we need right now. We need
Speaker 1: an exemplary business, financial, and global leader to manage through
Speaker 1: what is likely to be a critically important decade for
Speaker 1: our country in determining our destiny. He goes on to
Speaker 1: say potus is ext weak and incognitive decline. I can't
Speaker 1: really argue with that. Seventy percent of Democrats don't want
Speaker 1: him to run. True, Biden's weakness sets up a large
Speaker 1: opening for a qualified outsider to run as a Democrat.
Speaker 1: I guess he doesn't consider the already candidates in the
Speaker 1: race to be qualified. And he says Jamie can beat
Speaker 1: Biden in the primary and Donald Trump in the general,
Speaker 1: but he needs to start now and build name recognition
Speaker 1: among the broad electorate. He will easily raise billions of
Speaker 1: dollars I don't doubt that from Democrats and Republicans to
Speaker 1: fund his campaign, and he knows how to build support.
Speaker 1: I also enjoyed this part of what he had to
Speaker 1: say because it's just like kind of a mask off moment.
Speaker 1: He says, Bill Ackman JP Morgan stock will go up
Speaker 1: even more when Jamie becomes potus, as he can do
Speaker 1: more for the bank and our economy as president than
Speaker 1: he can as chairman and CEO of JP Morgan. The
Speaker 1: Bank will be in great shape since he has built
Speaker 1: a deep succession bench that is more than ready to
Speaker 1: step up. There is only one better job for Jamie
Speaker 1: than CEO of JP Morgan Chase, and that is President
Speaker 1: of the United States. So he just comes out and
Speaker 1: says the quiet Bart out loud that this will be
Speaker 1: great for banks, It'll be great for JP Morgan Chase,
Speaker 1: their stock will go up because Jamie would be able
Speaker 1: to do so much for them as president of the
Speaker 1: United States, as if Joe Biden and Donald Trump didn't
Speaker 1: already like give the store away to Wall Street and
Speaker 1: Corporate America. Overall, it's actually kind of ironic because Sager
Speaker 1: and I had joke that Jamie Diamond is already sort
Speaker 1: of President of the United States, or more powerful than
Speaker 1: the president, because of the amount of power that he
Speaker 1: holds within the banking sector and how critical that's been.
Speaker 1: We saw this in particular during the Silicon Valley bailout.
Speaker 1: There was all sorts of reporting about how instrumental Jamie
Speaker 1: Diamond was in formulating what the policy was. Apparently, originally
Speaker 1: Biden had been kind of skeptical of doing any kind
Speaker 1: of bailout, and then Jamie Diamond and other figures like
Speaker 1: him got on the phone. Of course, Jamie Diamond also
Speaker 1: then was positioned to like suck up the profitable leftovers
Speaker 1: of the various banks that were collapsing at the time,
Speaker 1: so benefited him in the end in that way as well.
Speaker 1: But I always just think it's amazing the way that
Speaker 1: these people view the problems in America. They're not worried
Speaker 1: about like, oh, wealth inequality is too great, or they're
Speaker 1: not worried about like, oh, we need to be able
Speaker 1: to get everybody healthcare, or we need to check the
Speaker 1: military industrial complex. No, they actually think the problem is
Speaker 1: that our presidents haven't been pro Wall Street enough, haven't
Speaker 1: given enough away to the titans of Wall Street and
Speaker 1: of corporate America, which is so wildly disconnected from the
Speaker 1: views of the American people. And they also, I think,
Speaker 1: genuinely delude themselves into believing that there's an appetite among
Speaker 1: the American people for this type of quote unquote leadership.
Speaker 1: But you know, they could ask Michael Bloomberg that was
Speaker 1: his theory of the case last time I was around
Speaker 1: as well, and you can ask Michael Bloomberg how well
Speaker 1: this worked out for him. So Sager is just astonishing
Speaker 1: to me, Like it reminded me.
Speaker 2: And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 2: become a premium subscriber today at break points dot Com.
Speaker 1: All right, soccer, what are you looking at?
Speaker 2: As we discussed earlier in our show, today. YouTube presumed
Speaker 2: for years that you were so stupid that you couldn't
Speaker 2: decide whether the twenty twenty election was stolen, so that
Speaker 2: they decided to come in and fact check and take
Speaker 2: down videos. Now it should always be up to you.
Speaker 2: If you think about where the standard even comes from,
Speaker 2: it's totally ridiculous. It traces back to the twenty sixteen
Speaker 2: presidential election. Before that, the Internet had no fact checking
Speaker 2: on it, nor should it have. We literally had decades
Speaker 2: on forums and other places where people spoke freely. They
Speaker 2: had debates, they argued, and the stakes were never seen
Speaker 2: as existential. It was only after the twenty sixteen election
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump that a bunch of people, elites mostly
Speaker 2: got together and decided that no normal person could ever
Speaker 2: in good conscience vote for Trump. They must have been
Speaker 2: tricked into it first by the Russians. Then they blamed Facebook.
Speaker 2: Some happily made Russian Facebook ads with a tiny budget
Speaker 2: compared to the rest of the entire campaign spending, was
Speaker 2: somehow responsible for swinging sixty five million votes. This led
Speaker 2: to the fact checking industrial complex. You had Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 2: YouTube and others partner withich so called news agencies to
Speaker 2: come together and to fact checkposts that were seen on
Speaker 2: the platform. Once again, underlying this program was this idea,
Speaker 2: you are so dumb that you believe everything on the
Speaker 2: Internet and that you trust the Washington Post, the New
Speaker 2: York Times, PolitiFact, Snopes, any of these others to be
Speaker 2: able to arbiter the truth in a small d democracy
Speaker 2: where people make up their minds for themselves based upon
Speaker 2: the information that is presented to them. They actually undermined
Speaker 2: that with fact checking. Fact checking itself is broken and
Speaker 2: is wrong, as we all learned in the COVID, you know,
Speaker 2: misinformation debates, as we learned in Wuhan lab, as we
Speaker 2: learned when the Hunter Biden laptop story was taken down.
Speaker 2: Their judgment cannot be trusted at a major macro level.
Speaker 2: So now bring in elon Community Notes. This has been
Speaker 2: the new program that Twitter has decided to launch where
Speaker 2: they say that they have solved fact checking with this
Speaker 2: program where you leave it up to the community. They
Speaker 2: say that this one is one where you can come
Speaker 2: in apply to be a Community notes fact checker. You
Speaker 2: will get voted by Twitter, vetted by them, and you
Speaker 2: will come through and algorithmically as well as with human judgment,
Speaker 2: you will decide whether posts itself need context or not,
Speaker 2: and then how you decide which context is placed there. Well,
Speaker 2: the downfalls of this are fully on display here. Let's
Speaker 2: put this up there on the screen. When Chris Pavlovski,
Speaker 2: he's the CEO of Rumble noted quote community notes on
Speaker 2: Twitter is a really bad idea. It is a fancy
Speaker 2: word for fact checking, which will eventually be gamed, hijacked,
Speaker 2: and or cause more harm than good. I've seen this
Speaker 2: story too often and I won't let it happen on Rumble. Well,
Speaker 2: you know what's really crazy is that Chris's post here,
Speaker 2: which literally is an opinion, then had a community note
Speaker 2: actually added to it. And in it the community note
Speaker 2: says all Twitter accounts must meet eligibility criteria. Second, for
Speaker 2: a note to be shown on a tweet, it needs
Speaker 2: to be quote found helpful by people who have tended
Speaker 2: to disagree in past ratings. And lastly, notes track metrics
Speaker 2: that alert the team of suspicious activity is detected. So
Speaker 2: in effect, what they did is they added context to
Speaker 2: Chris's opinion. This is way past even the line of
Speaker 2: fact checking, and it shows you that if you are
Speaker 2: able to and want to use the community Notes platform.
Speaker 2: When you disagree, you can try and add something to
Speaker 2: somebody's post that they they did not want there to
Speaker 2: be in the first place. This is a total, massive
Speaker 2: overstep in this entire system. The pushback that I've heard
Speaker 2: so far is, oh, but this is up to the
Speaker 2: community and not from top down. Okay, once again, just
Speaker 2: because community fact checking maybe quote unquote better at least
Speaker 2: in principle than top down fact checking by the news
Speaker 2: organizations does not mean that these platforms should be fact
Speaker 2: checking at all. And in fact, that was really my position,
Speaker 2: and it's something that I put out there yesterday, which
Speaker 2: is that people said, hey, this is the best solution
Speaker 2: to a very complex problem. The solution is dropping the
Speaker 2: presumption that preventing quote unquote disinformation is the responsibility of
Speaker 2: a platform at all. One person's disinformation will always be
Speaker 2: another's truth in a democracy. And it was really on
Speaker 2: display there where Chris put out an opinion and then
Speaker 2: somehow had a ridiculous community note actually attached to it.
Speaker 2: If you want to defend the Community Notes platform or
Speaker 2: a program, that's fine, you should reply to Chris's tweet
Speaker 2: with your opinion. If others find that useful, they can
Speaker 2: like that tweet or you can quote tweet what's happening
Speaker 2: with Chris's opinion and add yours and if more people
Speaker 2: like it, then that will be seen more. You should
Speaker 2: not be able to forcibly add context, you know, quote
Speaker 2: unquote onto anybody's posts that they never intended it to
Speaker 2: be there. It's actually a changing of the speech that
Speaker 2: they intended to put. Now imagine also this in a
Speaker 2: more human context, because we can get bogged down in debates.
Speaker 2: Oh the algorithm, you know, some fake transparent, non transparent
Speaker 2: process in which these people are selected somehow means that
Speaker 2: we're supposed to just put all of our trust in Twitter.
Speaker 2: I've seen that, you know, fall apart so many times.
Speaker 2: But operationalize this to the real world. You're at a
Speaker 2: bar and you how many people have been in this scenario.
Speaker 2: You hear a couple of people having a discussion. What
Speaker 2: they are saying is completely inactate, wrong and stupid. Would
Speaker 2: you really want a scenario where people are able to
Speaker 2: go in and to interject and say, actually, what you're
Speaker 2: saying needs context? Or do you think that those people
Speaker 2: should be able to say what they want? And then
Speaker 2: you know, maybe if you're friends with them. You could
Speaker 2: come in and just say, hey, I heard you guys
Speaker 2: talking about this. You know, here's what I think is important,
Speaker 2: you know, to understand, and then people can shrug and say, huh,
Speaker 2: you know, that's kind of interesting. But the point is
Speaker 2: is that people should have discrete opportunities to speak in
Speaker 2: this environment. They should not be having things placed directly
Speaker 2: on top of theirs in a non transparent process which
Speaker 2: is supposedly up to the community. And I actually thought
Speaker 2: Michael Tracy also made a really good point here, which
Speaker 2: is that in the current program, when communities consist of
Speaker 2: self selected users who join up because they're invested in
Speaker 2: a certain cause, like on Twitter, how many times have
Speaker 2: we said here before, Twitter is not representative of ever everybody.
Speaker 2: It is representative of a small, certain select base. Well,
Speaker 2: then even the amount of people who are engaged in
Speaker 2: the process is by definition not representative of every constituency
Speaker 2: that might have a say about whether something needs context,
Speaker 2: needs truth, or anything added to it. So look, I'm
Speaker 2: not picking on Twitter or Elon or any of these.
Speaker 2: What I am saying is that all attempts at fact
Speaker 2: checking themselves are bad. You know, what we do here
Speaker 2: at breaking points is. We don't lob onto somebody else's speech.
Speaker 2: We try to add context to help people think about things.
Speaker 2: And if people want to do videos about us and
Speaker 2: what we've gotten wrong, I think that's completely fine. But
Speaker 2: imagine a world where if enough people got together that
Speaker 2: they could interject something in the middle of one of
Speaker 2: our videos or on top of one of our videos,
Speaker 2: simply because they thought that we weren't adding context to something.
Speaker 2: I object to fact checking in all forms that currently exist.
Speaker 2: I think Chris over at Rumble got it exactly right.
Speaker 2: And just because you like this one a little bit
Speaker 2: more than you like the top down one doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that all of them aren't bad in the very principle itself.
Speaker 2: So that's where I'm at, Crystal. I'm getting very annoyed.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of people who are sending me things, and.
Speaker 1: If you want to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber. Today at Breakingpoints dot com, our
Speaker 1: friends over at the Quincy Institute have a groundbreaking new
Speaker 1: report about just how much Pentagon money is going to
Speaker 1: fund opinions on the Ukraine War. Obviously, this is a
Speaker 1: vital debate let's go and put this report up on
Speaker 1: the screen. The headline here is that defense contractor funded
Speaker 1: think tanks dominate the Ukraine debate. Some important details contained
Speaker 1: therein and Ben Freeman, who is a research fellow at
Speaker 1: the Quincy Institute, joins us now to break down this report. Ben,
Speaker 1: great to have you, Good to.
Speaker 2: See you, Ben, Thank you both.
Speaker 3: Great to be here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, so give us some of the top
Speaker 1: lines here.
Speaker 8: What we did was, I think we try to investigate
Speaker 8: what was the hunch we all had was that these
Speaker 8: defense contractor funded think tanks were dominating the Ukraine war debate.
Speaker 8: We see it on mainstream media, we see it in
Speaker 8: the New York Times, Washington Post. And what we decided
Speaker 8: to do was investigate whether this was true or not.
Speaker 8: And what we found out was that overwhelmingly, yes, defense
Speaker 8: contractor funded think tanks have been dominating the debate. In fact,
Speaker 8: more than eighty five percent of all think tank media
Speaker 8: mentions come from think tanks that are funded by the
Speaker 8: defense sector. So from this, what we determined was, whenever
Speaker 8: most of your listeners are hearing somebody talk about the
Speaker 8: Ukraine War, if they're front or from a think tank,
Speaker 8: chances are it's a defense contractor funded think.
Speaker 2: Tank, and why is that important? What does that lead to,
Speaker 2: at least in terms of incentives, right, because we've tried
Speaker 2: to look at this previously about the way that debate
Speaker 2: and all of that is formed. I mean, I have
Speaker 2: yet to see a single instance of somebody with a
Speaker 2: dissenting view actually featured in any of these mainstream media,
Speaker 2: either articles or on cable television, which probably even matters
Speaker 2: even more. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Absolutely, if fundamentally biases the discussion, if the only voices
Speaker 8: you're hearing from are voices that are paid, at least
Speaker 8: in part by the defense sector, then chances are the
Speaker 8: thrust of the debate that we're hearing it's really not
Speaker 8: a debate at all. It's a bunch of different people
Speaker 8: operating in an echo chamber, and that echo chamber is
Speaker 8: being funded by the very businesses that profit from the
Speaker 8: Ukraine War, in profit from a militarized foreign policy in general.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let me read a little bit from what
Speaker 1: you have here. You say, first, of the twenty seven
Speaker 1: think tanks whose donors could be identified, twenty one of
Speaker 1: them receive funding from the defense sector. That's seventy seven percent.
Speaker 1: You had a number of these think tanks where you
Speaker 1: still don't even know where they're getting their funding. So
Speaker 1: Lord knows where that money is coming from. And you
Speaker 1: point out that in articles related to US military involvement
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, media outlets have cited think tanks with financial
Speaker 1: backing from the defense industry eighty five percent of the time.
Speaker 1: That seven times is often as think tanks that do
Speaker 1: not accept funding from Pentagon contractors. I personally don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of experience in the think tank world, Ben,
Speaker 1: Can you help people understand what would be the shaping
Speaker 1: influences here? Would your average think tank analysts have an
Speaker 1: understanding of where the money is coming from? Would there
Speaker 1: be directives coming with that money? How does this all operate?
Speaker 8: Yeah, when you work at a think tank, you are,
Speaker 8: at least to some extent, you are captive to the
Speaker 8: folks who are funding that organization. And if you want
Speaker 8: to test this theory as a think tanker, say stop
Speaker 8: your funders disagree with and doing it, and see how
Speaker 8: long that think tank keeps employing you. I assure you
Speaker 8: be a short lived tenure for you. And we've seen
Speaker 8: this over and over and over again. Almost ten years ago,
Speaker 8: the New York Times did a big exposition of think
Speaker 8: tank funding, and what those folks found was was exactly
Speaker 8: this pattern. If folks were saying things that were antithetical
Speaker 8: to the interests of their funders, those individuals were fired
Speaker 8: or their roles were reduced. And repeated studies ever since
Speaker 8: we've seen the same thing happen over and over and
Speaker 8: over again. So when you work at a think tank,
Speaker 8: you know who your funders are, and in case you don't,
Speaker 8: if you write something that is threatening to them, your
Speaker 8: higher ups will let you know who those who those
Speaker 8: funders are and tell you to stop saying those things
Speaker 8: that are offensive to them.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's really important and it exposes something
Speaker 2: which people should be looking.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 2: The irony too, is, like you said, the New York
Speaker 2: Times understands why this is a problem ten years ago
Speaker 2: and then proceeds in the middle of Ukraine to go
Speaker 2: ahead and to cite every single one of these people.
Speaker 2: I mean, when is the last time that you saw
Speaker 2: a real dissenting voice in The New York Times or
Speaker 2: even a dispassionate analysis you know, in any of these articles, Right, Ben.
Speaker 8: Right, that's exactly right. And in the report we looked
Speaker 8: at over a thousand different articles. I mean, this took
Speaker 8: months to put together, and in all of those articles,
Speaker 8: we never saw any acknowledgment from The New York Times,
Speaker 8: the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal that the folks
Speaker 8: that they were citing were from think tanks that were
Speaker 8: funded by the defense sector. In some cases, they're making
Speaker 8: comments or suggesting the US buy weapons send weapons to
Speaker 8: Ukraine that are made by their funders. This is the
Speaker 8: most direct conflict of interest you can possibly get, and
Speaker 8: yet all of these outlets they're not disclosing that to
Speaker 8: their readers, and according to us. You know, I think
Speaker 8: anybody would agree that's a disservice to the reader because
Speaker 8: they're only telling part of the story by not revealing
Speaker 8: the funders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to underscore that because I think that's
Speaker 1: really important. Bad enough that so many of these analysts
Speaker 1: are coming from think tanks funded by the defense industry.
Speaker 1: Even worse is that New York Times, CNN, whoever is
Speaker 1: hosting this analysis, are not disclosing those very direct conflicts
Speaker 1: of interests. So if you're your average reader, your average
Speaker 1: viewer of cable news, you have no idea what's going
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes. You think these are just dispassionate
Speaker 1: experts who have nothing at stake in this fight, who
Speaker 1: are just offering their honest opinion, when in reality there's
Speaker 1: a lot more going on behind the scenes. I think,
Speaker 1: to me, that's as damaging and as damning as anything
Speaker 1: in this report.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I completely agree, Crystal. And the other side of
Speaker 8: this that we see too, is that from the think
Speaker 8: tank's point of view, they're publishing their own reports, articles
Speaker 8: and that sort of thing that directly benefit these funders,
Speaker 8: recommend US foreign policy decisions, particularly in Ukraine, that would
Speaker 8: be a great financial benefit to these the defense sector funders,
Speaker 8: and they're not disclosing it. So you read some of
Speaker 8: these articles, you read some of these briefs, you know,
Speaker 8: whether it's from CSIS, Atlantic Council, Center for a New
Speaker 8: American Security, all these heavily defense contractor funded think tanks,
Speaker 8: and they're producing things that look a little better than
Speaker 8: propaganda for the defense sector, and they're not telling their
Speaker 8: readers about it.
Speaker 2: Yep, really, really well said. It's an important thing. It's
Speaker 2: why it matters to look at Washington and what exactly
Speaker 2: is coming out of it. And we appreciate you joining
Speaker 2: you sir, thank.
Speaker 1: You, thank you. Yeah, it's our pleasure.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you guys so much for watching bearing with
Speaker 2: us as we're all from home. It's for a good reason.
Speaker 2: We promised we've got the awesome new set that everybody
Speaker 2: will be taking a look at. As a reminder, Premium
Speaker 2: subscribers get the very very first look, so take advantage
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Speaker 4: On all of that.
Speaker 2: Otherwise, we will see you all tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Love y'all, see you tomorrow.