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Speaker 1: Cable news is ripping us apart, dividing the nation, making

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Speaker 1: it impossible to function as a society and to know

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Speaker 1: what is true and what is false. The good news

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Speaker 1: is that they're failing and they know it. That is

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Speaker 1: why we're building something new. Be part of creating a new, better, healthier,

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Speaker 1: and more trustworthy mainstream by becoming a Breaking Points Premium

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Speaker 1: member today at breakingpoints dot com. Your hard earned money

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Speaker 1: is going to help us build for the midterms and

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Speaker 1: the upcoming presidential election so we can provide unparalleled coverage

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Speaker 1: of what is sure to be one of the most

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Speaker 1: pivotal moments in American history. So what are you waiting for?

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Speaker 1: Go to Breakingpoints dot com to help us out. All right,

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Speaker 1: So shall we engage in some totally shameless speculation that

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Speaker 1: you'll be able to instantly hold us against us when

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Speaker 1: we're totally wrong on no memory. Your favorite game, it's

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Speaker 1: my favorite thing, is to make a bunch of predictions

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Speaker 1: that are inevitably going to be proven wrong, which we

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Speaker 1: always see in the comments. Yes, I do occasionally read

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Speaker 1: the comments. Yeah, for sure it is wrong. I really

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Speaker 1: don't my egos to fragile. I'm sorry, guys, it's not

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Speaker 1: because I don't love you, all right, So to set

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Speaker 1: us up, I pulled a few of the latest polls

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Speaker 1: from the key midterm swing states, specifically for the Senate.

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Speaker 1: We had a poll from Trafalgar, which is right leaning,

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Speaker 1: but to be honest with you, they've been probably more accurate.

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Speaker 1: And then the mainstream polsters in the last election they

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Speaker 1: weren't one hundred percent, but more accurate probably. They had

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Speaker 1: in Ohio, which has been surprisingly competitive at least in

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Speaker 1: terms of the polling, they had J. D. Evans up three,

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Speaker 1: and in Pennsylvania they have John Fetterman over doctor Oz

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Speaker 1: by two. Okay, so that one is tightened up for sure.

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Speaker 1: Down in Georgia, there was just an Atlanta Journal Constitution

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Speaker 1: poll that had Warnock up by three on herschel Walk

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Speaker 1: and that's about where that race has been the whole time.

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Speaker 1: I looked at the latest five thirty eight model. This

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Speaker 1: is the like fancy dancy one that has all their

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Speaker 1: not just the polls, but all their analysis and their

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Speaker 1: fundament whatever they do. And they have right now Democrats

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Speaker 1: slightly favored to keep the Senate sixty five thirty five,

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Speaker 1: and they have Republicans strongly favored to win the House

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Speaker 1: seventy one twenty nine. So that's sort of the latest

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Speaker 1: data that we have, so much as you can, you know,

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Speaker 1: read into that grains of salt all the way around.

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Speaker 1: So Sager, what do you think is going to happen?

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Speaker 1: All right, at the risk of looking like a complete

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Speaker 1: moron and having to do one of my famous this

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Speaker 1: is what I Got wrong monologue, which I do. Actually,

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Speaker 1: they're very endearing when you do. I do really enjoy

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Speaker 1: doing them. Okay, honestly, I think it's gonna by the way,

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Speaker 1: this is descriptive analysis. I think it's going to be

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Speaker 1: a complete red wave. I think the Republicans are going

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Speaker 1: to win every single one of these seats. I'll tell

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Speaker 1: you why. Look, by the way, you may not be

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Speaker 1: happy about it, but I'll just say, look, at the

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Speaker 1: end of the day, sometimes fundamentals are the fucking fundamental.

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Speaker 1: You have high inflation. Inflation number just came in high.

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Speaker 1: You have high gas prices. What did I just read everybody?

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Speaker 1: You have general social malcontent? Is that? Is that a

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Speaker 1: nice way of putting in of what exactly is happening

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Speaker 1: across the country. You have high crime. Now I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying necessarily it's anybody's fault, but it exists, and that

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Speaker 1: we know in the nineteen seventies, certain flashback to something

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Speaker 1: I just talked about the last time that this happened,

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Speaker 1: we had a major Republican victory, and then fourth or

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Speaker 1: fifth you have the party in power almost always loses.

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Speaker 1: What was the data that you said, It was like

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Speaker 1: it would they would have to outperform eighteen ninety six,

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Speaker 1: like the best midterm result in like one hundred years.

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Speaker 1: I don't. I think there's something like that. I know

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Speaker 1: that they would have to have a historically strong mid

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Speaker 1: term performance in order especially to hold onto the House.

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Speaker 1: The House, and I think, I mean the House. That

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Speaker 1: one's pretty obvious, Like I think that's gone for Democrats.

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Speaker 1: I gen you generally agree with your analysis, but I

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Speaker 1: don't think it. I think it's going to be close, though,

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Speaker 1: So I wouldn't call it a red wave. I think it. Honestly,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a super specific prediction, which is a

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Speaker 1: really dumb thing to do. I think we could be

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Speaker 1: heading back into a situation where the fate of Senate

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Speaker 1: control comes down to a Georgia runoff. So you know,

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Speaker 1: I think it's fairly unlikely that either Walker or Warnock

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Speaker 1: gets to fifty percent. That means you're headed to a

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Speaker 1: runoff there. You look at, you know, Nevada, I think

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Speaker 1: I would probably say the Republican is more likely to

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Speaker 1: win there. But I think to counterbalance that, I do

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Speaker 1: think Fetterman hangs on in Pennsylvania. I think, you know,

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Speaker 1: the Ohio polls I still think are sort of fake.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that one's going to be as close

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Speaker 1: as people think. Wisconsin another Democratic hope, you know, with

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Speaker 1: Ron Johnson there that seems to already have sort of

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Speaker 1: collapsed for them. So I basically think you keep status

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Speaker 1: quo on a lot of these. You win, Fetterman wins

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, the lady Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada loses,

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Speaker 1: and then control of the Senate comes down to Georgia

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Speaker 1: runoff once again. So that's kind of what I'm thinking,

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Speaker 1: is like a weird election where it's not really a wave.

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Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why I think that, And again, guys,

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Speaker 1: who knows. Okay, I also just can't imagine a situation

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Speaker 1: where you have such bad numbers on the economy and

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Speaker 1: right track, wrong track, and then the party in power

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Speaker 1: does affirmatively well. Now, I do think Republicans have handicapped themselves.

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Speaker 1: I mean with all sorts of things like the abortion

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Speaker 1: positions are definitely a detriment for them. The extremism on

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Speaker 1: that issue has very much damaged their candidates. They picked

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Speaker 1: a bunch of bad candidates. Some of those things weigh

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Speaker 1: them down, so they won't have the wave in the

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Speaker 1: Senate that I think they could have absent those things.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, you got to think about this, like,

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Speaker 1: you're the party in power. People are overwhelmingly telling you

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Speaker 1: the economy is shit, and you don't even have an

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Speaker 1: economic message. They're not even running on an economic message.

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Speaker 1: That is political malpractice. It's insanity. Now, I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: the Republicans are offering, so they're not. They're not even

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Speaker 1: talking really about the economy either. They're all in on crime.

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Speaker 1: Democrats are all in on abortion, and meanwhile, the issue

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Speaker 1: that eighty percent of the country says is their number

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Speaker 1: one issue, none of these assholes have anything to say

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Speaker 1: about it. This is it's insane. It really is insane.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, if you're the Democrats and you're the

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Speaker 1: party in power, that means you're de facto ceding that

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Speaker 1: issue to the Republicans. Actually just saw there's a democratic

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Speaker 1: poultry sort of famed. He's like, you know, very famous

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Speaker 1: for his working class polling, in particular his names Stan Greenberg,

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Speaker 1: and he did a bunch of polling recently and he's

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Speaker 1: really sounding me alart. I mean, this is a Democrat.

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Speaker 1: And Bernie Sanders said similar things recently. He's like, you

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Speaker 1: have to run on the economy. If you don't, you're

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Speaker 1: going to lose. It's really super basic. So now, like

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Speaker 1: I said, I do, I think Republicans have sort of

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Speaker 1: like shot themselves in the foot in a few ways.

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Speaker 1: So that's why I don't think it's going to be

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Speaker 1: overwhelmingly red wave, but in general, bad year for Democrats

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Speaker 1: and comes down to a kind of a coin flip

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Speaker 1: in Georgia. That's my prediction today. I mean, and if

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Speaker 1: you put the meeting can change tomorrow. But that's how

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Speaker 1: I feel today. I think you're right. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: take all of that. I just I just think I

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Speaker 1: hate to say it, but not as not all people

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Speaker 1: are as enlightened as those in this room. And you know,

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, for a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: it's just very simple, like I'm voting against the trend

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Speaker 1: that I see. Even if a guy literally can't speak

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Speaker 1: in Georgia and said some interesting things. In fact, we

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Speaker 1: had something we were going to play for all of you.

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Speaker 1: It was so indecipherable. That was like a game so incomprehensible.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm not going to torture them. We just can't.

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Speaker 1: But I mean, look, that's just how it goes sometimes,

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Speaker 1: and again, like I don't want it to work that way.

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Speaker 1: And if anything, you know, again just to come back to,

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Speaker 1: like the message is that we got to give some

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Speaker 1: people something else to that eighty percent. If we could

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Speaker 1: actually argue about what to do about inflation, if we

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Speaker 1: could actually argue about how to meaningfully bring down gas

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Speaker 1: without just like dunks against each other, we would be

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Speaker 1: in a hell of a lot better place. But instead

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Speaker 1: it's all just you know, even the crime thing. Like

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna deny obviously, but like I just came

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Speaker 1: to Chicago today and I get these stupid comments, you know,

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Speaker 1: every time everyone's like, oh my god, like, don't get

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Speaker 1: showed in Chicago. It's a beautiful city. Okay, it's a

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Speaker 1: beautiful fucking city. Are there problems. Yeah, there are problems,

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Speaker 1: but like just because you're you know, somewhere else, you

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Speaker 1: don't need to go like dank dunk on a bunch

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Speaker 1: of people, Like we're all living our fucking lives and

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Speaker 1: like that's the point is is that instead of using

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Speaker 1: it as a dunk, just be like, thank god, I

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Speaker 1: don't live in this shithole. It's like, well, how about

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Speaker 1: we make it better? How do we make it better

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Speaker 1: for all the people who live here? It's a great city. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean to me, it says everything about our political

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Speaker 1: system that you have this election where the economy is

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Speaker 1: so critical, so important, and neither party has anything to say.

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Speaker 1: They're just all in on culture, all in on and

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Speaker 1: you know what, I care about these I'm not saying

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Speaker 1: that like abortion, crime aren't important, but there is an

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Speaker 1: issue that literally everyone is saying, I really care about this.

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Speaker 1: Nothing to say news of the day. I was like,

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Speaker 1: all right, we got to find something lighthearted here. Everything's

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Speaker 1: about Ukraine, nuke, nukes, nukes, snookes, nukes, digging deeper, I'm like,

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Speaker 1: what can we do? And so this is what we

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Speaker 1: settled on. And it gets very much to this, and look,

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Speaker 1: you know, no disrespect. But the ratings just came out

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Speaker 1: for CNN's Jake Tapper, his brand new show. It launched

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Speaker 1: two nights ago to great a plum primetime move, primetime

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Speaker 1: move nine PM slot. This is the coveted slot in

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Speaker 1: all of cable. And this isn't just about Jake, this

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Speaker 1: is about the entire medium. So I thought he I

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Speaker 1: would read to you some of the numbers that have

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Speaker 1: come in from this And just so you guys know

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Speaker 1: that he had an interview with the President of United States.

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Speaker 1: All right, this used to be one of those flagship things.

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Speaker 1: How many people decided to tune in? Well, okay, so

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Speaker 1: it was more than one million less than John Annity's

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Speaker 1: Fox News. It was half of MSNBC. But my personal

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Speaker 1: favorite is when you actually dig into what the advertisers

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Speaker 1: over there actually care about young people. So actually shout out,

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Speaker 1: if you're between twenty five and fifty four, go ahead,

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Speaker 1: all right, so a shit ton of the people here,

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Speaker 1: the audience, shit shit ton of the people here. No

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Speaker 1: disrespect to anybody over below that yayay or below above whatever.

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Speaker 1: It's all good. We welcome any and all stripes. He

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Speaker 1: got just two hundred and eleven thousand people in that demographic,

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Speaker 1: so it means an interview with the president, interviews in

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Speaker 1: primetime with the president. And the crazy thing is he

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Speaker 1: actually beat MSNBC, which had over two and a half

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Speaker 1: million people watching their show that had only one hundred

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Speaker 1: and forty four thousand people. What's so insane is that, Look,

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to claim that we're bigger than these people,

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Speaker 1: but breaking points, ninety five percent of our audience is

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Speaker 1: in that key demographic and we get well over a

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Speaker 1: million for every single show that we do. And it's

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Speaker 1: not about us think Look, they are powerful in so

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Speaker 1: many different ways. But the point is is that this

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Speaker 1: is something to be celebrated, not just as a dunk

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Speaker 1: on Jake, but about the entire medium and artifice, the

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Speaker 1: structure that kept a lot of us down, that covered

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Speaker 1: for a lot of the people who robbed us, and

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Speaker 1: what I was talking about earlier, it's falling apart. I

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Speaker 1: saw a lot of you guys really appreciated what we

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Speaker 1: were talking about late night, and again no disrespect Trevor Noah,

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Speaker 1: but that guy lost a million viewers in seven years

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Speaker 1: a million? How does something like that even get propped up?

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Speaker 1: Colbert is the same. He's literally he has broadcast TV Crystal,

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Speaker 1: which is a genuine government monopoly, and he's losing the

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Speaker 1: fucking Greg Gutfield on Fox News. I mean, these are

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Speaker 1: zombie outlets with a zombie business model. I mean that

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Speaker 1: doesn't mean they're not going to continue for a long time.

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Speaker 1: But CNN and MSNBC, in particular, their new executives, and

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Speaker 1: both of them have new executives in charge, they are

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Speaker 1: overtly putting them into a managed decline. Yes, I mean

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Speaker 1: with over at CNN, you know, with the move of

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Speaker 1: they move John Burman somewhere else, like they're just shift

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Speaker 1: literally shifting deck chairs on the Titanic. They're not trying anything.

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Speaker 1: Their big play with CNN Plus and we also, hell

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Speaker 1: that went right. So so ultimately they've just decided, all right,

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Speaker 1: we're going to try to cut down the budget. We're

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Speaker 1: not going for any big splashy place, We're not trying

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Speaker 1: to do the new new thing. We're just going to

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Speaker 1: try to hold on to the increasingly small scraps of

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Speaker 1: what we've got left. And you have this legacy model

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Speaker 1: where advertisers in the cable companies still pay them more

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Speaker 1: than what they're actually getting is actually worth. That'll persist

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Speaker 1: for some amount of time. They have, of course, tons

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Speaker 1: of elite cashing, incredibly powerful in terms of all of that,

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Speaker 1: but they're ha managed to climb over at MSNBC Rachel Maddow,

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Speaker 1: you know, the quarterback of the network right. Whatever you

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Speaker 1: think of her, and we certainly have lots of thoughts

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Speaker 1: on her, she was the only person there who actually

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Speaker 1: could pull in an audience. They didn't even try to

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Speaker 1: replace her. They brought an Alice Wagner, who actually was

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Speaker 1: at MSNBC back when I was at MSNBC, and she

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Speaker 1: they know that her show there did not perform. There's

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Speaker 1: a reason that she got canceled from the network before.

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Speaker 1: So to fill in for their big primetime quarterback, they

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Speaker 1: put in someone that they know is a proven loser.

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Speaker 1: That's what managed decline looks like. They can pay her

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Speaker 1: a lot less. She doesn't mind being bigfooted when they

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Speaker 1: can shove Rachel back in or for other you know,

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Speaker 1: big network coverage events. It's pretty incredible when you realize

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Speaker 1: that even they know their ship is sinking. So this

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Speaker 1: is why we believe so passionately what we're building here,

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Speaker 1: because we think this is the beginning of something, and

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Speaker 1: if we can have something that is true and honest

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Speaker 1: and really tries to grapple with the issues that are

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Speaker 1: facing the country in the world in a serious way

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Speaker 1: and have some fun while we're at it, try to

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Speaker 1: every day a little bit. You know, how much of

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Speaker 1: about our place would the country be in if we

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Speaker 1: just came at it from that and not everything corrupted

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Speaker 1: by corporations and profit and fucking big pharma ad every

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Speaker 1: time you turn around. You know, the single biggest compliment

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Speaker 1: that we get is when I hear from people and

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Speaker 1: they're like, you change my relationship with my dad, like

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Speaker 1: your show, You change my relationship with my relatives who

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Speaker 1: I thought differently from because it was one of those

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Speaker 1: things where they were just glued to Fox, glued to MSNBC.

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Speaker 1: The dining table would turn into a shouting match, and

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Speaker 1: it's the acrimony, the bitterness that it would cause in

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Speaker 1: people's households was genuinely ripping and tearing people apart. And

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Speaker 1: you multiply that by millions, and that's how we got here.

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Speaker 1: And the whole point is that, look, it's not just

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Speaker 1: about breaking points. It's about independence, it's about the fact

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Speaker 1: that the country can change for the better. It's just

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Speaker 1: the revolution is literally here. It just doesn't feel like

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Speaker 1: it yet, and it will come. It will come very

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Speaker 1: very slowly. It can feel for people like us who

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Speaker 1: are enlightened now. But at a certain point, you know,

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Speaker 1: the zombie, it basically has to fall, like somebody's got

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Speaker 1: to shoot it in the head with a shotgun. I

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Speaker 1: don't know who that person is. Not literally, guys, somebody

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Speaker 1: some media matters is going to clip that. So we're

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Speaker 1: experimenting with something new here, guys, so bear with us.

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Speaker 1: But we really wanted to give you, guys a chance

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Speaker 1: to help to program the show. So we picked three

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Speaker 1: topics that you can choose from. And I'll let Sager,

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Speaker 1: I'll let you shut it up because I think there's

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Speaker 1: a certain order what there's there's This is far more

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Speaker 1: complicated than it should be, however, Uh, you have to

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Speaker 1: text breaking points in all caps one one, one, one

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Speaker 1: word to the number in front of you two, two, three,

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Speaker 1: three three. After you do so and join our session,

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Speaker 1: you can then choose a b n C and I

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Speaker 1: will be narrating the results as they come in yes,

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Speaker 1: all right, So step one, get on your phone, yes,

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Speaker 1: get out your phone up to go to the text thing. Okay.

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Speaker 1: Step three this is how I would need it, explain

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Speaker 1: to me. That's what I'm doing it this way. Okay.

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Speaker 1: Step three put this number here two, two, three, three

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Speaker 1: three in the like who it's going to line? Okay,

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Speaker 1: Then what you're going to type in the text is

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Speaker 1: what breaking breaking points all caps one one one, no

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Speaker 1: space all one word all right, your phone alright, breaking

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Speaker 1: points one one one, all caps to the number in

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Speaker 1: front of you, and then a B or C. Okay,

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Speaker 1: Currently we have B is winning by sixty seven percent.

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Speaker 1: Wait and let me let me explain. So economy, we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about the latest numbers.

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Speaker 1: I m F warning, Elon Musk, we're talking about Starlink,

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Speaker 1: not Twitter. The starlink thing is what we're thinking of

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Speaker 1: talking about. Or two if you want, yeah, we get it.

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Speaker 1: Whatever if you want us to talk about that week. Okay,

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Speaker 1: Elon is actually winning right now forty six percent. Forty

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Speaker 1: perree is just the presidential primary twenty twenty four horse race.

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Speaker 1: We can be terrible, to be alive and sentient. Is

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Speaker 1: Trump going to be in prison. If you want to

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Speaker 1: hear a crazy prediction, we can do C. If you

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Speaker 1: want to talk about Elon, we could do B A.

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Speaker 1: All right, So A is currently eighteen percent, B forty three.

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Speaker 1: C is inching up thirty nine he's forty one. A

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Speaker 1: is now inching up. I feel like an auctioneer. Okay,

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Speaker 1: Elon is going up forty two percent, thirty nine percent

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Speaker 1: percentum press nineteen percent for A that the tech is working.

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Speaker 1: See c's jedging out, is edging it out, see is

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Speaker 1: surging forty one forty people, put your put your votes in,

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Speaker 1: put your boats in. We've got hundreds and hundreds of

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Speaker 1: votes that are coming in. Okay, okay, okay, forty one

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Speaker 1: forty forty A right, all right, we're gonna go with

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Speaker 1: c CEE by a very short margin forty two percent,

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Speaker 1: thirty nine percent and nineteen percent. Thank you. Also, yes,

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Speaker 1: I don't really feel like talking about Elon musk so again,

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Speaker 1: so thank you. Okay. So here's the little newspeg we'll

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Speaker 1: use as an excuse to get into this twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: four situation and saga. I'll kick it over to you.

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Speaker 1: All right, there are a bunch of debates this week.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys watch any of them

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Speaker 1: for the key Senate races, and one of them was

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Speaker 1: Tim Ryan versus JdE Vance this week or last week,

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Speaker 1: I don't remember anyway. In that debate, Tim Rynd was

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Speaker 1: actually asked if you wanted Joe Biden to run for president,

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Speaker 1: and he was very clear. He was like, no. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think for Tim not to get too much into this,

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Speaker 1: but for him, he sees Ohio it's more of a

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Speaker 1: red state at this point. He feels like there's political

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Speaker 1: calculation made here to distance himself from Biden. His critique

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Speaker 1: is just like we need generational change, which I always

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Speaker 1: think is sort of like sort of bullshit, even though

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Speaker 1: I understand people's concerns with his age, but it contains

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Speaker 1: no content. But anyway, the reason I think this is

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Speaker 1: notable is because he's not the first one. There's been

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Speaker 1: a bunch of Democrats who have, even though Biden's the

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Speaker 1: incumbent and even though he's you know, supposedly their guy,

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Speaker 1: who have blatantly said they don't want him to run again.

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Speaker 1: And then you also have polls that routinely say even

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Speaker 1: if you just are asking Democrats a overwhelming majority of

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Speaker 1: Democrats say we don't want him again. And what's interesting is,

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Speaker 1: you know, on the Republican side, there's some discontent with Trump,

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Speaker 1: but overwhelmingly he's still his control of that party. So

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Speaker 1: you have the media that is mostly talking about, oh

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Speaker 1: is desant is going to catch up to trom what's

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Speaker 1: going on there? And I'm looking around him like the

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Speaker 1: one over here on the Democrat side is the one

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Speaker 1: that's actually more vulnerable. So anyway, that's how I'll set

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Speaker 1: up the twenty twenty four debate what he thinks saga

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Speaker 1: is going to happen. I think the craziest thing is

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Speaker 1: that despite all of that, when seventy percent of the

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Speaker 1: Dems don't want you to run, who are they gonna pick?

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Speaker 1: You listened to the clips that we played, We're gonna

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Speaker 1: play fake Obama Pete Budajeedge like we're gonna par or

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Speaker 1: fake Obama Beato or Baco Cory Booker or how many

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Speaker 1: of these make Why do they all have to speak

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Speaker 1: the same? Have you guys noticed that? It's completely crazy.

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Speaker 1: It's like, just be a real person and they can't

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Speaker 1: say that they're literally fake. And when you consider the

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Speaker 1: bench You're like, well, maybe he, like you know, has

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Speaker 1: trouble stringing a sentence together and so much more. But

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Speaker 1: he at least, I mean, doesn't seem one hundred percent

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Speaker 1: as full of shit as the rest of these people.

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Speaker 1: And that's all thick and muster. And the craziest thing is, like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: on the Republican side, I'm sure you know, whatever you

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Speaker 1: think of Ron DeSantis, all that all you have to

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Speaker 1: do is go and look at a poll. It's like

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Speaker 1: fifty two percent people who are for Trump. Every time

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Speaker 1: he gets indicted or a closer to indictment, his numbers

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Speaker 1: literally go up in the Republican Party. And you're like, well,

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Speaker 1: I think that we should probably just look at this.

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Speaker 1: And yet Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the House, Great American, right,

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Speaker 1: he did a lot of good first, okay that that

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Speaker 1: tax cut for rich people in corporations than so Paul

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Speaker 1: was just as this two days ago and he said

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Speaker 1: the twenty twenty four Republican nominee will not be Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: It will either be Ron DeSantis, it will either be

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Speaker 1: uh Tim Scott for it will be nude gingrich. What

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Speaker 1: I was like, what, that's a curveball. So I'm just like,

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Speaker 1: not see that one coming. If I see some shit

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Speaker 1: like that, I'm like, all right, it's just gonna be

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Speaker 1: Trump like it. I like, after I've heard all of this, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I lived through the same fucking story at two thousand

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Speaker 1: and six. It's a lot of wishcasting and a lot

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Speaker 1: of wishcasting. I mean, look, you know again, whatever you

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Speaker 1: think of Trump, and look, maybe he actually we'll get

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Speaker 1: indicted and that'll change all of this up right now,

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Speaker 1: Joe Biden's approval rating in Georgia is thirty one percent,

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Speaker 1: no matter who wins down there. What's his approval rating

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Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania It's like thirty five percent. Wisconsin, I heard

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Speaker 1: it's an important state. Yeah, nearby, guess what it's like

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Speaker 1: thirty eight percent, under forty or five. But this is

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Speaker 1: the thing that's so crazy, is like, we are very

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Speaker 1: likely to end up the Joe Biden Donald Trump rematch.

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Speaker 1: They're no guarantees, but it's very likely at this point,

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Speaker 1: and both of them have approval ratings setting like this.

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Speaker 1: You have this country and they're like, no, we don't

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Speaker 1: want either of these people. And then it's like, well,

424
00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,280
Speaker 1: here you go. Here they are again. Good luck enjoy,

425
00:22:15,520 --> 00:22:18,720
Speaker 1: enjoy your choices in our great democracy. So sadly, I

426
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:20,879
Speaker 1: think that's what our failed system is going to produce.

427
00:22:20,960 --> 00:22:23,199
Speaker 1: I think it's going to give us Joe Biden and

428
00:22:23,240 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: Donald Trump again. And honestly, look, Joe Biden came what

429
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:28,320
Speaker 1: forty one thousand votes away from even losing joy, you know,

430
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:30,520
Speaker 1: and a lot of people don't actually even consider how

431
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:34,399
Speaker 1: small the margins in Georgia, in Arizona even were. Like

432
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:36,760
Speaker 1: all it takes is a little roll of the dice

433
00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:41,080
Speaker 1: and things go completely different. If Trump had actually leaned

434
00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 1: into getting his people to mail and vote, he probably

435
00:22:44,160 --> 00:22:49,440
Speaker 1: would have won. Just that one change, it almost definitely

436
00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:51,439
Speaker 1: would have changed the result in Georgia. I used to

437
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 1: know the numbers on the top of our head. If

438
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:54,360
Speaker 1: you guys been watching for a while, you probably heard

439
00:22:54,400 --> 00:22:56,480
Speaker 1: us talk about this a lot. But there were a

440
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 1: lot of Republican primary voters who voted in the primary

441
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:02,960
Speaker 1: by mail and then just didn't vote in the general

442
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:05,400
Speaker 1: election because there had been so much like, oh, mail

443
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 1: in ballots and you got to vote in person whatever,

444
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: and they just didn't show up. Just that margin alone

445
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:12,439
Speaker 1: would have changed the result in the state of Georgia.

446
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: So Yeah, it was that close. And I guess in

447
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 1: terms of what I think my I suspect your prediction

448
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 1: is the most likely outcome. And obviously this is a

449
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: real fool's Errand because this is an eternity in politics

450
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 1: we're talking about, we're facing down some incredibly significant global situations.

451
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:33,720
Speaker 1: I'll just say, without bringing up the N word again,

452
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 1: that's definitely going to get clipped out of context. Anyway.

453
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 1: It was like knowing you guys before I got canceled. Anyway,

454
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: You're gonna have all kinds of things happen. But I

455
00:23:50,560 --> 00:23:53,520
Speaker 1: do think that's the most likely outcome. But if you

456
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:55,479
Speaker 1: were going to switch out one of these people, I

457
00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: think Joe Biden is more vulnerable, and especially I mean,

458
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 1: this is just according to the numbers. This is no

459
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 1: like political genius. This is just based on the numbers

460
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 1: of his standing in the Democratic Party versus Trump standing

461
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: in the Republican Party. Joe Biden has a much weaker position,

462
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,720
Speaker 1: even though he is the incumbent. Now. I don't think

463
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:16,880
Speaker 1: any established Democratic politician would have the balls to challenge him,

464
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 1: but I think you could have an outsider challenge him,

465
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 1: and I think they'd have a shot, especially well Bernie.

466
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 1: Bernie has already said he's not gonna run if his

467
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:33,080
Speaker 1: friend Joe is running, which you know, we'll see Mary

468
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:37,040
Speaker 1: And I like that suggestion personally, not crystal ball, thank you,

469
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: though it's very flat. But let me just say, let

470
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: me just say this, though, I think a lot depends

471
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 1: on how the midterms do go, because Biden's whole thing

472
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: was the whole reason he romped ultimately in the Democratic

473
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,679
Speaker 1: primaries because people were persuaded this was the guy that

474
00:24:56,680 --> 00:25:00,199
Speaker 1: could beat Trump. Well, if you have an econ me

475
00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: that shit, an approval rating that's in the tank, and

476
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 1: you get shellact in the mid terms, how strong is

477
00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:07,080
Speaker 1: your case going to be that you're the guy that

478
00:25:07,119 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: could beat Trump again? That's where I think a real

479
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:11,920
Speaker 1: vulnerability comes in. And then the other thing that I

480
00:25:11,960 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: think is a glaring vulnerability is what happens in Ukraine

481
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: because there is increasing public dismay and dissatisfaction unease with

482
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: the endless direction of the war there. So I think

483
00:25:26,359 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: that's a wide open, a wide open potential issue and

484
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: problem for him as well. So if I had to

485
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:34,479
Speaker 1: bet on one side of the Trump Biden equation changing,

486
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:36,640
Speaker 1: I think Biden is much more vulnerable. I think you're

487
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 1: I mean, look, he's seventy nine years old, and you know,

488
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 1: anything can happen. And the crazy thing is Trump is

489
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: like seventy seven years old, so it's insane to spring.

490
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:46,960
Speaker 1: By the way, I've met the man. He's wide. He's

491
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:50,879
Speaker 1: a wide gentleman. That's the best. The suits really do

492
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:52,879
Speaker 1: a lot for They do a crazy amount for him.

493
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 1: I remember seeing in the Oval office. I'm like, this

494
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: guy's fucking huge. There's not a cup across. So you

495
00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: see him like on the golf course, like, whoa, Yeah,

496
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:05,480
Speaker 1: that's when you really see it. Yeah. So I have

497
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,880
Speaker 1: been following very closely a really interesting new worker led

498
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: effort to unionize a bank, specifically Wells Fargo. Let's go

499
00:26:14,359 --> 00:26:16,440
Speaker 1: and put this tear sheet up on the screen. This

500
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 1: is from the Guardian. They say, well workers at Wells Fargo,

501
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: the third largest bank in the US, are pushing to

502
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: organize a union across the bank's workforce with Wells Fargo

503
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 1: Workers United, a campaign with the Committee for Better Banks,

504
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,639
Speaker 1: which successfully won the first union contract in the banking

505
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,760
Speaker 1: industry in forty years at Beneficial Bank in twenty twenty one.

506
00:26:34,200 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 1: So joining us now to talk about these efforts and

507
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,439
Speaker 1: why they're so significant, and how it's going and all

508
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: of those good things. Is Jesse McCool. She is a

509
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: worker organizer at Wells Fargo, and she joins us now,

510
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: great to have you, Jesse, welcome, good to see you.

511
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: Good to see you guys too, and thank you for

512
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:55,880
Speaker 1: having us on to speak. This is truly a humbling

513
00:26:56,040 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: experience that wall are interested in our story. It a

514
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,879
Speaker 1: well little big bank over there. Yeah, well, I mean

515
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: we've followed a lot of the various Wells Fargo scandals

516
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:09,240
Speaker 1: and one of the things that really intrigued me is

517
00:27:09,280 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 1: part of what you all talked about was, you know,

518
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: a lot of these scandals came from workers feeling a

519
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:15,399
Speaker 1: lot of pressure to do things they really shouldn't be

520
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:17,920
Speaker 1: doing in a way that they really didn't want to do,

521
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: but they had no power to sort of, you know,

522
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:22,080
Speaker 1: go up the chain or be a whistleblower because they

523
00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 1: just ultimately be fired. So just talk about some of

524
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,880
Speaker 1: the genesis of this idea of unionizing in order both

525
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:30,480
Speaker 1: to better your your working conditions but also to potentially

526
00:27:30,840 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 1: fight fraud at this bank. Sure, I mean, the Committee

527
00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: for Better Banks has been around for some time and

528
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: if you asked me in twenty eighteen, when I just

529
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: dipped my toe in to see, you know, if this

530
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: was something worth pursuing, and then in becoming fully involved,

531
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:59,919
Speaker 1: if you asked me that we would have the success

532
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: that we've currently have, I would have been knocked over

533
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:09,680
Speaker 1: with a feather. So part of the reason why where

534
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,200
Speaker 1: I got involved, and as well as the reasons of

535
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: many of my co workers as to why they've got involved,

536
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 1: is due to the fact that we see issues around

537
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:31,440
Speaker 1: fair and equitable pay, personal safety at work, whether that

538
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: is related to physical safety or a commitment you know,

539
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: post pandemic to you know, keep medically vulnerable coworkers safe.

540
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:52,960
Speaker 1: We also see issues around compensation. When it comes to

541
00:28:55,160 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: Charlie Sharp gets a twenty percent raise, however, we're fighting

542
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: for pennies on the dollar. And then underlying all of

543
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: that is a transparency issue. And this is where I

544
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: think it kind of connects to the previous scandals that

545
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: Wells Fargo has had policies, procedures, processes, whether it relates

546
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: to compensation, the various isms racism, sexism, nepotism, things like that,

547
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 1: whether it relates to workload reassignment, physical safety, medical safety.

548
00:29:39,800 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: There is little to no transparency around those issues. And

549
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 1: what Wells Fargo requires us to do in our training

550
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: and tells us to do is raise your hand. Raise

551
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: your hand. Well, during our most publicized scandal, six thousand

552
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 1: people raise their hands and HR ignored did So how

553
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 1: is that a means to an end of getting a

554
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: better workplace for us as workers and then for our

555
00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 1: own clients so that we can effectively advocate for them

556
00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, so yeah, let's get into that. I

557
00:30:27,440 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: think that's important, which is that you want to advocate

558
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: not only for the clients that you know overwhelmingly you

559
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: actually have to deal with, not the executives, but also

560
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: in order to make sure that you have more of

561
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:38,960
Speaker 1: a say at work. So, what are some of the

562
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: steps that you guys are taking in order to make

563
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: sure that that happens. Well. Some of the steps that

564
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:51,320
Speaker 1: we're taking is we learned a lot during the pandemic.

565
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: We are a large bank. There's four primary divisions. There's

566
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:01,479
Speaker 1: the retail bank, the business bank, Wealth and Investment Management,

567
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 1: and then our commercial and investment banking division. We have

568
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: diverse employees over a wide geographic range, and there's almost

569
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand of a three hundred thousand of us now.

570
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: One of the main issues with previous scandals and then

571
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: some of the ones that are occurring now, like the

572
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 1: mortgage one, is that, like I said, they ask us

573
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 1: to raise our hand and bring light to issues that

574
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: are unfair or have the potential to cause reputational or

575
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: regulatory risk, and that system is broken. So we've taken

576
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: to organizing online during the pandemic and using non traditional

577
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: methods such as Twitter, Facebook, Creddit, Slack, discord to connect

578
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: with our co workers. And now that we're all re

579
00:32:09,280 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: entering the workplace and see each other face to face,

580
00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 1: we're using some of the more traditional on the ground

581
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 1: organizing tactics to keep the momentum going. And currently what

582
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: we what we have seen is we have membership in

583
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:34,440
Speaker 1: twenty nine states in the past quarter six hundred, you know,

584
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: unique members have taken some sort of action, whether that

585
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:43,400
Speaker 1: is to you know, join one of our organizing channels,

586
00:32:43,920 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: attend a training where we educate people about their rights,

587
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: or attend trainings where you know, we can help them

588
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: find their voice that's been historically ignored so that they

589
00:32:59,760 --> 00:33:03,080
Speaker 1: then and can stand up and say no, I know

590
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: this is wrong. I'm advocating for me, and as part

591
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,960
Speaker 1: of my job, we tout doing what's right for the client.

592
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: So I'm not just organizing and advocating for me. I'm

593
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 1: advocating for the client because you know, as you guys

594
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 1: have seen in our reports, our recent diversity report, we

595
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: said that we wanted to be reflective of the visions

596
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 1: and values of the communities and that we serve when

597
00:33:32,200 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: we live in those communities, and we want to advocate

598
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: for ourselves and our fellow community members right well, because

599
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: you all aren't the one getting the like payday when

600
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: clients are getting screwed over also, so it's put everybody

601
00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:48,920
Speaker 1: in a horrific position, and to have just an nobility

602
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: to speak out and be that whistleblower would be crucial

603
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: in and of itself. I'm curious how management has responded

604
00:33:56,400 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: because consonant Aana Presley actually pressed Wells Fargo. I believe

605
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: this is a CEO. You can tell me on the

606
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: other side of this clip, if this is the CEO

607
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:08,720
Speaker 1: of Wells Fargo, on whether or not they would remain

608
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: neutral in any sort of union organizing, and also whether

609
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: they would commit to not retaliating against workers who are

610
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:21,319
Speaker 1: exercising their rights and ordered organize. Let's take a look

611
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: at that clip. Will you commit to neutrality and the

612
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:27,160
Speaker 1: workers organizing effort and ensure that workers who speak out

613
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: do not face retaliation? And this is I'm looking for

614
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:37,520
Speaker 1: a yes or no response. We believe that we're best

615
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:42,680
Speaker 1: yes or having a direct relationship with them? Is that

616
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: a yes or a no? That is, well, you commit

617
00:34:45,680 --> 00:34:48,440
Speaker 1: to neutrality and the workers organizing effort and ensure that

618
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: workers who speak out we will do not face retaliation.

619
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: And it's really easy, yes or no. We will follow

620
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: the law. Okay, And so yeah, that was Charlie Sharff,

621
00:34:58,160 --> 00:35:00,040
Speaker 1: who's the CEO of Wells Fargo who you mentioned and

622
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: earlier is getting sadles pay raises. Isn't that nice for him?

623
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:08,319
Speaker 1: So what has the response been to this organizing effort? Well,

624
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:10,840
Speaker 1: I will tell you you are absolutely right. That is

625
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: Charlie Sharp. I was actually a guest of Maxine Waters

626
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: at that hearing. So if you're an indication about how

627
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 1: it's going for us, it's going pretty well. But yes,

628
00:35:26,160 --> 00:35:39,160
Speaker 1: retaliation rampant. In my own personal situation, I was asked

629
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 1: to remove union signage from my Skype headline. Now, this

630
00:35:49,640 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 1: turned into a six month battle with our legal department

631
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: at Wells Fargo and the culmination of it, because they

632
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: couldn't answered the question of how was I identified? What

633
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 1: is the process for saying maybe somebody thought they actually

634
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 1: saw something but they were wrong. What's the remediation process?

635
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: That couldn't be answered, And our own legal department ended

636
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: up agreeing with me and stating right at the you know,

637
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:30,759
Speaker 1: last minute, before I was going to follow ULP, that

638
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: I could reinstate my signage. Now that's not the only

639
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:40,319
Speaker 1: example of retaliation. My manager was demoted, and I now

640
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 1: report to a person who promoted a coworker began sleeping

641
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: with them and then married her. And my direct manager

642
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: is this person's best friend. So how is that fair.

643
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 1: The other thing that is going on, and we've heard

644
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: this from all divisions across Wells Fargo, managers are actually

645
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: urging their code, their their direct rapports to join our

646
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:25,200
Speaker 1: union to contact us. They've also informed us of the

647
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:31,400
Speaker 1: fact that Wells Fargo is bringing in labor and employment

648
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:45,319
Speaker 1: attorneys to educate managers about how to essentially suppress ours here.

649
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: So Ali Sharff tried to have us removed at that

650
00:37:49,880 --> 00:37:53,520
Speaker 1: hearing that you saw right there and have us replat

651
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: with members of the Bank Policy Institute. But we stand strong,

652
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:05,239
Speaker 1: we stand invigorated, and if our own managers understand that

653
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: there needs to be something more in order for us

654
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: to advocate for ourselves and there and thereby our clients,

655
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: that truly says something to me about how our efforts

656
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 1: are being received in a positive way. But clearly we

657
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: are up against a big force with with Wells Fargo

658
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: bringing in UH and Union. They're I mean, they're incredibly powerful,

659
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 1: massive tons of money, like they will do everything they

660
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 1: can to make sure that they can keep all of

661
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: their power and control. I have no doubt about it. Jessie,

662
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: thank you so much for spending some time with us

663
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: and breaking down you know why you decided to get

664
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: involved with this effort and how it's going, and you know,

665
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 1: we really wish you all the best and you know

666
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: a lot of luck with what you're trying to pull off.

667
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:01,719
Speaker 1: Keep us updated. Thanks for joining. Oh, thanks for having me.

668
00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. Yeah, it's our pleasure. Interesting potential news

669
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: for you. Here a particular monopoly that we have become

670
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:14,399
Speaker 1: rather acquainted with recently, which is that of Ticketmaster, which

671
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:17,000
Speaker 1: merged a while back, a few years back with Live

672
00:39:17,120 --> 00:39:20,880
Speaker 1: Nation and has created this just massive juggernaut which is

673
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:26,760
Speaker 1: basically a scam, massive fees, escalating ticket prices, artists getting squeezed,

674
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 1: venues getting squeezed, et cetera. Well, there is a new

675
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: effort to unwind that merger between ticket Master and what

676
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 1: was previously you know when their potential rivals, Live Nation.

677
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up on the screen. This

678
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:43,240
Speaker 1: is actually an effort from our friend Matt Stoler's group,

679
00:39:43,400 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: the American Economic Liberties Project and put here we go,

680
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 1: Hollywood Reporter up on the screen. Activist group asked the

681
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 1: Justice Department to unwind Live Nation and Ticketmaster merger. The

682
00:39:52,480 --> 00:39:54,840
Speaker 1: twenty ten merger has been subject to scrutiny for allegedly

683
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: leading to higher ticket prices and claims that Live Nation

684
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,400
Speaker 1: Entertainment is abusing its market power over venues and artists.

685
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:04,720
Speaker 1: A Live Nation representative said that the live events industry

686
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: has quote never been more vibrant and competitive. So basically

687
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 1: what happened here is just before they merged, Ticketmaster had

688
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,680
Speaker 1: the bulk of the ticket sales market, but Live Nation

689
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: was set to get in the game. So they you know,

690
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: they merged, they become this one gigantic company, and it

691
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 1: gives them incredible market power. Why because if you're a

692
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 1: venue and you say, like Ticketmaster screwing me over, I'm

693
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: going in another direction, what they say is okay, then fine,

694
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: all of our artists that we promote as part of

695
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:38,320
Speaker 1: Live Nation, they're not going to come to your venue.

696
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: And so ultimately the venues have no choice. If you're

697
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,760
Speaker 1: an artist that's going to you know, perform at that venue,

698
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:47,360
Speaker 1: you also have no choice because you're signing the contract

699
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 1: they are with Ticketmaster, and it is what it is,

700
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 1: and they are completely screwing over you know, everybody else

701
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: involved it. Just think of the insanity of what a

702
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: massive percentage of the ticket price they are getting when

703
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: all they're doing is like running a website. You know,

704
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: it should be pennies on the dollar and insteads this

705
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: massive chunk and they add all those fees for like

706
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 1: online delivery and all this other craziness. We had to

707
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: deal with this recently. Whenever we do our live tour,

708
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:13,960
Speaker 1: you have to sign a contract with the venue. The

709
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:15,680
Speaker 1: venue gets to sell tickets. By the way, we're the

710
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: ones selling the tickets. So why don't we have access

711
00:41:17,600 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: to our customer data? Oh wait, we have literally no,

712
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you a single name of a person

713
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 1: who came to our live show except for our lifetime

714
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:29,239
Speaker 1: members because we refunded their tickets. That's that's craziness. So

715
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:33,520
Speaker 1: we sell the tickets, they don't do anything. We put

716
00:41:33,600 --> 00:41:37,279
Speaker 1: on the performance, the venue hosts it. But Ticketmaster gets

717
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,320
Speaker 1: the data and they get to charge our fans and

718
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:44,160
Speaker 1: customers and extra fee. That's bullshit. And like, look, we'll

719
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 1: probably get now retaliated against yes whatever. Yeah, honestly, like

720
00:41:49,920 --> 00:41:52,879
Speaker 1: the economics of these shows, yeah, right, for this reason,

721
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:55,839
Speaker 1: for exactly this reason, really don't make very much sense,

722
00:41:56,640 --> 00:41:58,600
Speaker 1: in spite of the fact that you know, we're lucky

723
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: to be able to like generate a large number of

724
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 1: ticket sales. But it really doesn't matter. This part I

725
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: didn't even know about. They run a secondary I'm reading

726
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:09,919
Speaker 1: for the article now ticket market called Ticketmaster Resale, where

727
00:42:09,960 --> 00:42:13,800
Speaker 1: they charge a second, more lucrative fee in addition to

728
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: the fee that was assessed on the primary ticket market.

729
00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: So what they basically like to do is to allow

730
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,480
Speaker 1: scalpers to buy up almost you know, a majority of

731
00:42:22,520 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 1: the tickets on the original sale, then they resell them

732
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: on this secondary ticket market where Ticketmaster gets to charge

733
00:42:31,880 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: another even higher fee, so they're making another cut, and

734
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: that's the only way that a lot of fans can

735
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:42,760
Speaker 1: actually get tickets. So the whole thing is completely disgusting.

736
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:45,520
Speaker 1: I mean again, it's like you dig into any segment

737
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: of the economy or the market and you find these cartels, inclusion,

738
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: and massive monopolies, things that were allowed through under both

739
00:42:53,080 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: the Obama and the Trump administration. I think this was

740
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: actually an Obama era deal that put these two companies

741
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: together and allowed this to go through. And what the

742
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 1: American Economic Liberties Project is saying is, you know, when

743
00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: this deal was struck that said okay, you can merge,

744
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:11,680
Speaker 1: there were actually some specific provisions to make sure that

745
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 1: it remained a competitive marketplace. Their argument is that they

746
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: are violating the terms of that settlement by forcing venues

747
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:22,400
Speaker 1: to accept their ticketing services as a condition for hosting

748
00:43:22,480 --> 00:43:25,800
Speaker 1: live nation performers and then retaliating against those that refuse.

749
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: So that's basically the argument here is you're not even

750
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 1: following by the rules that you were supposed to in

751
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: order to allow this merger to go through. So the

752
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 1: answer is to unwind the merger. Yeah, I think you're right.

753
00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:39,520
Speaker 1: I mean it's totally nuts. And look, we need to

754
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 1: two companies as bad. I mean we need a ton more, right,

755
00:43:43,480 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: I actually I think it was on Andrew Schultz's podcast,

756
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: Luis c. K gave a whole breakdown about how he

757
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: tried to go around the monopoly and he was at

758
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: the top of his game and even he found it very,

759
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: very difficult. I recommend people go and listen to that, because, look,

760
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: these people have a tremendous power over it. Entertainment. You know,

761
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 1: I tried to buy tickets for Blink twenty eighty two,

762
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,560
Speaker 1: are their new tour that's coming. It's an outrageous amount

763
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: of money and a huge so look, no, you know,

764
00:44:09,760 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 1: obviously blankuinety two is the last time. I think it's

765
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 1: a nos Solia tour, So the tickets are going to

766
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 1: be high price. But even with the pre sale and

767
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,200
Speaker 1: all that, like a third of the fee was Ticketmaster fees.

768
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: It's just completely insane. And look, you know, people like

769
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 1: me who love the band are like, okay, like you

770
00:44:24,840 --> 00:44:27,080
Speaker 1: just have to pay it. You have no choice. And

771
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,360
Speaker 1: you know, if you had to guess the artists themselves,

772
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,200
Speaker 1: they don't like it this way. No, they just have

773
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: no other there's no other options. It's the only way

774
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:36,480
Speaker 1: for them to make a living. Bruce Springsteen, at the

775
00:44:36,560 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: time that this merger was being considered, he wrote a

776
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: letter and said, this is going to be this is

777
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: gonna be terrible, it's gonna be disaster. And just recently,

778
00:44:43,120 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: if you saw this in the news, Ticketmaster has this

779
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:48,800
Speaker 1: new they call dynamic pricing, which is just basically like,

780
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: we can gouge you as much as we possibly can,

781
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:54,160
Speaker 1: because like, if there's a high demand for the tickets,

782
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: we're just going to keep upping the price up, in

783
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: the price, up in the price to squeeze every less

784
00:44:58,760 --> 00:45:02,279
Speaker 1: penny out of the fans. And this happened with Bruce

785
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,399
Speaker 1: Bracty cohere they were getting charge like five grand or whatever,

786
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: and he had he was stunned by what was ultimately

787
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 1: going on, because people, of course were disgusted that, you

788
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:14,280
Speaker 1: know that, in their view, he was charging these ticket prices.

789
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:19,440
Speaker 1: So anyway, it is unconscionable that this monopoly is allowed

790
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:22,879
Speaker 1: to continue. And the Biden administration has taken a much

791
00:45:23,000 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 1: different approach on nah. They've been much better than previous administrations,

792
00:45:26,200 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 1: not saying they're perfect, but they brought in some seriously

793
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:31,720
Speaker 1: like you know, forceful people who have a very different

794
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:37,400
Speaker 1: ideological predisposition towards antitrust regulation. And so hopefully this is

795
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:39,800
Speaker 1: one that they will ultimately take a look at. Yeah. Absolutely,

796
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:46,799
Speaker 1: researchers at Boston University have gotten themselves in the barrel

797
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 1: a little bit for some rather shocking research that it

798
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: turns out their government sponsors did not know that they

799
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:59,520
Speaker 1: were even involved in. Essentially, what's going on here is

800
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 1: that and this I would call this gain of function.

801
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:04,520
Speaker 1: Not a scientist, I'm gonna call this gain of function,

802
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: but they do like to play it fast and loose

803
00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: with the definition to skirt around regulation. So basically what

804
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: they've done here is they've taken the spike protein from omicron,

805
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: which is the and it is that spike protein that

806
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: has made it kind of the most infectious version, despite

807
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 1: the fact that and probably related to the fact that

808
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: Omicron itself was less virulent, less what's the word, less deadly,

809
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: less dangerous to you, And so they took the spike

810
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: protein that made it that infectious and they attached it

811
00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: to the more deadly version the earlier version, because they

812
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: wanted to then experiment on mice to find out if

813
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 1: giving mice this deadly version killed them Little Frank and COVID. Yeah,

814
00:46:46,880 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 1: and so eight of the ten mice that were that

815
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:54,800
Speaker 1: were purposely infected with this engineered virus, this engineer pathogen

816
00:46:55,600 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 1: in this lab in Boston University, right in Boston. And

817
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: so the headlines come with an eighty percent eighty percent

818
00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:08,720
Speaker 1: mortality rate that that doesn't exactly trans translate to people.

819
00:47:08,920 --> 00:47:13,360
Speaker 1: But they also did experiment with human cells and the

820
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 1: so this was for this news was first broken by

821
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,920
Speaker 1: by the Daily Mail. Other right wing outlets followed up

822
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:25,320
Speaker 1: on it. Stat News has has since done some additional reporting.

823
00:47:25,360 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 1: We've reached out to Boston University for comment, as well

824
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: as to an I A D. The NIH branch that

825
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: that that funded this research. What what they told stat News,

826
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: which is the kind of health policy outlet, is that

827
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 1: they didn't know that that the Boston University researchers were

828
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: going to do this. Let me say, an A I D.

829
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: Didn't know. Yeah, So and that's an important I think

830
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 1: piece of this puzzle because the government sponsoring it is

831
00:47:56,080 --> 00:47:59,759
Speaker 1: exactly what's in question in Wuhan, Right, this this is

832
00:47:59,800 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: a a government a lab funded by government grants. And

833
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: so if that's the case here, again, it just shows

834
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: how little oversight there is with our money, right, and

835
00:48:11,320 --> 00:48:19,359
Speaker 1: so the so Boston University's spokesperson Rachel Cavalario, who who

836
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 1: commented to stat News, is trying to deny that this

837
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: is gain of function research, saying that it's actually reducing function. Basically,

838
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 1: her quote to stat news was, in fact, this research

839
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:34,080
Speaker 1: made the virus replication less dangerous, so but it is

840
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: making it more pathogenic, it's making it more deadly. So

841
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:40,440
Speaker 1: you're so, what what what's going on here is they're

842
00:48:40,520 --> 00:48:44,319
Speaker 1: they're manipulating these viruses and then and then stepping back

843
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: and saying, well, actually it's not gaining. Yes, eight of

844
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: ten mice died, but we're not going to call that,

845
00:48:50,239 --> 00:48:52,839
Speaker 1: we're not going to call that gain of function. Right,

846
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: But if you're manipulating the function, whether it's it's actually

847
00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 1: the semantics over the word gain and the word function, right,

848
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: so like what is the function transmission? Is the function death?

849
00:49:02,480 --> 00:49:05,560
Speaker 1: Like what is the function? And then like that's why

850
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: the conversation over gain a function. We've seen the back

851
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: and forth between Ran Paul and Anthony Fauci and Congress

852
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 1: over this. Fauci and other researchers, who, by the way,

853
00:49:14,480 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 1: have very legitimate reasons in some cases for wanting to

854
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:21,280
Speaker 1: do this research, right, Like the temptation to do this research,

855
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: and the sort of theory behind doing this research is

856
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 1: one that reasonable people can disagree with. And we've talked

857
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:31,800
Speaker 1: to people on both sides of that argument. Both of

858
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: us are pretty strongly in the don't enhance the virus

859
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: camp in a lab. But I do think reasonable people

860
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: can disagree with it, and it's easy to understand why

861
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: researchers want to do this. It actually broke into the

862
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,719
Speaker 1: news cycle, this time based on a preprint, right, so

863
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: this is not a peer reviewed study, but they published

864
00:49:48,560 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: their research, right, Yeah, this is the yep, there's the element.

865
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: You can see it up on the screen. This is

866
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:55,919
Speaker 1: the preprint study. And then the media kind of picked

867
00:49:55,960 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 1: up on the fact, and I think it was Daily Mail,

868
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:00,880
Speaker 1: Fox News, local Boston paper had it too that this

869
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: is happening. So that's how they are actually looking to

870
00:50:04,239 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: get this. This is in the peer review process, but

871
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 1: they published the research. They published a study based on

872
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,400
Speaker 1: the research and that's how we sort of know that

873
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 1: this happened at all. Right, and so here's the comment

874
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:19,120
Speaker 1: to STAT News from n I a i D. So

875
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 1: Emily or Belding, director of ni ai d's Division of

876
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:28,280
Speaker 1: Microbiology Infectious Diseases, said the BU team's original grant application

877
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:31,000
Speaker 1: did not specify that the scientists wanted to do this

878
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:33,800
Speaker 1: precise work, nor did the group make clear that it

879
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:36,360
Speaker 1: was doing experiments that might involve enhancing a pathogen of

880
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 1: pandemic potential in the progress reports it provided to n

881
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 1: I a i D. Or Belding told STAT in an interview,

882
00:50:45,200 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: I think we're going to have conversations over upcoming days.

883
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:51,040
Speaker 1: Asked if the research team should have informed them with

884
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 1: its intention to the work, she said, we wish that

885
00:50:53,560 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: they would have. Yes. Now, this story has since been

886
00:50:56,600 --> 00:51:01,720
Speaker 1: updated with some pretty angry comments from Boston University related

887
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:03,520
Speaker 1: to what I was saying earlier, saying that no, in fact,

888
00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 1: this is not this is not what you're saying that

889
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 1: it is. You should you should relax. This is fine,

890
00:51:09,760 --> 00:51:14,160
Speaker 1: but people can judge for themselves whether they think moving

891
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: the spike protein into are a more virulent pathogen is

892
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: something that we want being done in a in the

893
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 1: middle of a big population center. Now, what Boston University

894
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:32,319
Speaker 1: will say is we're a BSL three lab. They put

895
00:51:32,400 --> 00:51:35,719
Speaker 1: out a little video that shows the doctors putting on

896
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 1: their spacesuits and going into these going into the lab

897
00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 1: to kind of demonstrate, you know, just how just how

898
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:44,399
Speaker 1: serious they are. They show their they show their HEPA

899
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: filters and everything else. It's say, Okay, I'm glad that

900
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 1: you're taking this seriously. You're taking it seriously because of

901
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:53,759
Speaker 1: the extreme risk that's involved here. I mean, I do

902
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:57,400
Speaker 1: think there are labs that probably did take it seriously before. Oh,

903
00:51:58,239 --> 00:52:01,560
Speaker 1: absolutely and took it like we actually had the security

904
00:52:02,080 --> 00:52:05,320
Speaker 1: precautions that we now know were in question at the

905
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: Wuhan lab, like not always exactly. And your point was

906
00:52:08,560 --> 00:52:10,879
Speaker 1: that basically, the reason that you have to take these

907
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 1: precautions extremely seriously is because of the risk involved in

908
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 1: the first place. So it's sort of a concession of

909
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 1: the point that this is an extremely risky endeavor period.

910
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 1: And I mean, you learned that when you attach the

911
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:29,640
Speaker 1: spike protein it was more infectious. This is I'm not

912
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 1: a virologist, but I could have told you that if

913
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:35,279
Speaker 1: the government spokesperson's reaction, and that's why I ked on

914
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:38,200
Speaker 1: the word enhancing. If the government spokesperson's reaction is to

915
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 1: they have the study, right, it's not a super long study.

916
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:43,719
Speaker 1: You can download the PDF and again it hasn't been

917
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:46,799
Speaker 1: peer reviewed, but the government presumably overlooked this, looked over

918
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: that study before they gave comment to the media. If

919
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:52,840
Speaker 1: they're using the word enhancing, it was the reporter, but

920
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: they're responding to it. Yeah, yeah, right right, So if

921
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:59,960
Speaker 1: the word enhancing is involved, then you know that we're

922
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:02,279
Speaker 1: getting into the semantic conversation about what is and what

923
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:04,919
Speaker 1: is not gain a function, when what we're actually doing

924
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:10,080
Speaker 1: is manipulating the function the spike protein to see if

925
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 1: it can be more x, y or z right, and

926
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: you don't and you don't always know what the result

927
00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: is going to be, which is why you're supposed to

928
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:21,480
Speaker 1: like get permission ahead of time for all of these

929
00:53:21,520 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 1: different you know, you know, precise experiments for people who

930
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 1: have been living in a cave. The context for this

931
00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 1: is that you know, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, you know,

932
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: with with funding from US organization Ecohalth Alliance, which itself

933
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: was getting funding from an i AI D. What was

934
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:44,120
Speaker 1: engaged in what people say was risky research that had

935
00:53:44,160 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 1: the potential to have created COVID nineteen and so scientists

936
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:54,080
Speaker 1: from you know, across the spectrum still say that that

937
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: is within the realm of possibility, that the kind of

938
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:01,759
Speaker 1: nature versus lab hypotheses are are both still possible and

939
00:54:01,880 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 1: it neither has been proven without a doubt, which is uh,

940
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:10,080
Speaker 1: which is why there's so much concern when you start

941
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: to see this, uh, when you when you when this

942
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: paper hit hit the press and then gets into the

943
00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 1: But it's interesting that at first it was for a

944
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: day or two in the conservative press before then Health

945
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 1: you know, the stat Stat News, which is a you know,

946
00:54:26,360 --> 00:54:31,000
Speaker 1: well regarded scientific journal or scientific not journal but newspaper. Uh.

947
00:54:31,200 --> 00:54:34,279
Speaker 1: But you're but on the progressive side on the and

948
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 1: in the mainstream media side, you don't see much concern

949
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 1: over this. The intercept has i mean incredible coverage of

950
00:54:41,120 --> 00:54:44,239
Speaker 1: the entire sort of game function. I don't know a

951
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 1: limb there. Yeah, it has just been fantastic, and I've

952
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:49,800
Speaker 1: seen conservative media actually cited a good deal. But this

953
00:54:50,160 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: even this news, I mean, it's been in Fox News,

954
00:54:52,080 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 1: it's been in fairly big outlets in the New York Post.

955
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 1: The legacy media has not touched it so far that

956
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:01,239
Speaker 1: I've seen that could have changed my last checked, but

957
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:03,879
Speaker 1: so far it hasn't touched this story. And the real

958
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:08,680
Speaker 1: I think what makes this worth discussing in the context

959
00:55:08,760 --> 00:55:12,279
Speaker 1: of COVID is specifically that we know our government was

960
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: funding these studies without providing adequate oversight, and we know

961
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 1: that they've been less than forthcoming about what they knew,

962
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 1: how they knew it, and whether or not they were

963
00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: acting responsibly in the course of the research in Wuhan

964
00:55:24,160 --> 00:55:27,600
Speaker 1: and providing funding for that research in Wuhan. So and

965
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,360
Speaker 1: we know that the medical community was very defensive of

966
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: that too, in a way that made it, Peter Dazac

967
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:36,000
Speaker 1: at Eco Health Alliance, made it difficult to ascertain exactly

968
00:55:36,040 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: what was happening and whether it was being done responsibly.

969
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 1: And so when you have more government money going, even

970
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:45,240
Speaker 1: if it's in a responsible, secure lab in the United

971
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,960
Speaker 1: States of America, even if that's happening, we just had

972
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 1: over a million people die. We have been on lockdown's

973
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: business just the country has been ravaged by COVID over

974
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. We need to know, and

975
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,600
Speaker 1: we need to know if you don't know, like if

976
00:56:01,640 --> 00:56:03,439
Speaker 1: you don't know where your money is going at this point,

977
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 1: give me a break, right, And we don't obviously we

978
00:56:06,520 --> 00:56:09,080
Speaker 1: don't want to shut down scientific research. That's not it's

979
00:56:09,120 --> 00:56:11,960
Speaker 1: not at all what you know. The critics and the

980
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,759
Speaker 1: skeptics of this, of this researchers saying, they're saying that

981
00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:20,800
Speaker 1: because of the clear cost potential cost to the public,

982
00:56:21,320 --> 00:56:23,920
Speaker 1: you have to be much clearer about the benefits that

983
00:56:23,960 --> 00:56:25,760
Speaker 1: you're going to bring to the public from this research.

984
00:56:25,840 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 1: It can't just be science for the sake of science,

985
00:56:29,480 --> 00:56:32,400
Speaker 1: like there has to be some you know, some public

986
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: health pursuit that's that's involved here. You have to show

987
00:56:35,640 --> 00:56:37,759
Speaker 1: how you could actually get to that, and you have

988
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 1: to show how you're how you're following safety protocols and

989
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:45,279
Speaker 1: how you're being fully transparent along the way. And when

990
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: the NIAI d IS is telling the press that they

991
00:56:48,000 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 1: didn't know about this and that they wish they had,

992
00:56:49,760 --> 00:56:52,440
Speaker 1: it doesn't inspire confidence. No, And it's the same thing.

993
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:54,279
Speaker 1: We're going back to exactly what was happening in the

994
00:56:54,360 --> 00:56:56,560
Speaker 1: Muhan lab. And that's the bottom line. Like we are

995
00:56:56,680 --> 00:57:01,000
Speaker 1: not doctors or researchers, medical scientists. We're not. We're journalists

996
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 1: and our job is to hold people in powerful positions accountable.

997
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:05,360
Speaker 1: But whether you're a member of the public or a

998
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:08,919
Speaker 1: journalist or whatever, like your job, you have to place

999
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 1: some measure of trust in experts, Like we cannot all

1000
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:14,320
Speaker 1: be experts in the safety of this kind of research,

1001
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:16,959
Speaker 1: but what we can do is make sure that people

1002
00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: are doing it responsibly and they're doing it with the

1003
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:23,600
Speaker 1: utmost security, and they're balancing the concerns if not wanting

1004
00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:28,080
Speaker 1: another pandemic or not want or any pandemic or an

1005
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:32,160
Speaker 1: accident or whatever it is, with the concerns of medical

1006
00:57:32,200 --> 00:57:34,920
Speaker 1: advancement and research, et cetera, et cetera. But you know,

1007
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:38,160
Speaker 1: they have to prove that they deserve that trust, and

1008
00:57:38,360 --> 00:57:41,320
Speaker 1: this is another example of them failing on that measure

1009
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:44,439
Speaker 1: within the context of you know, twenty twenty to twenty

1010
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:46,320
Speaker 1: twenty two, we're still in twenty twenty two. We're still

1011
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:48,840
Speaker 1: in a couple of years of this and the country

1012
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: is going to take years to recover. And if Republicans

1013
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 1: do take the House, this is the kind of thing

1014
00:57:54,760 --> 00:57:58,400
Speaker 1: that I think researchers are going to have to expect

1015
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 1: that they're going to get investigated over it would be

1016
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 1: the one upside of a Republican majority. Because this is

1017
00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 1: after potential immediate threat of nuclear war. This is one

1018
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:11,760
Speaker 1: of the most important, or maybe the second most important

1019
00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:15,520
Speaker 1: issue in the world. The immediate mass threat to millions

1020
00:58:15,560 --> 00:58:17,280
Speaker 1: and millions of people is on the line. And there's

1021
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:20,000
Speaker 1: been an explosive growth in the number of these labs

1022
00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: around the world that are now doing this extraordinarily risky research,

1023
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 1: even just over the past couple of years. And the

1024
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 1: tragedy is that some of that has been sparked by

1025
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:33,520
Speaker 1: the pandemic, which may itself have been sparked by a

1026
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:37,240
Speaker 1: lab accident. And so if you now have dozens of

1027
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:39,800
Speaker 1: labs around the world, and a lot of them doing

1028
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:42,919
Speaker 1: what they call kind of dual use, which is both

1029
00:58:43,080 --> 00:58:49,720
Speaker 1: for military purposes and civilian purposes, the risk of either

1030
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:53,160
Speaker 1: a purpose full release or an accidental release just goes

1031
00:58:53,280 --> 00:58:56,959
Speaker 1: up by the number of labs that you expand across

1032
00:58:57,080 --> 00:58:59,760
Speaker 1: the world, right Yeah, and they're doing all this with

1033
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 1: a huge deficite of public trust. Democrats have shown very

1034
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 1: little curiosity to getting to the bottom of this. It's

1035
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 1: absolutely true, whether it's for political reasons or legitimate moral

1036
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: reasons Republicans will be if they win the House, they

1037
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:16,760
Speaker 1: will absolutely be overturning the medical community looking for evidence

1038
00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:20,760
Speaker 1: of what's happening with this, so an important story to follow. Certainly.

1039
00:59:21,000 --> 00:59:25,640
Speaker 1: We're joined now by Congressman Ken Buck, Republican of Colorado. Congressman,

1040
00:59:25,680 --> 00:59:28,560
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us on counterpoints. Thank you.

1041
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:30,880
Speaker 1: It's going to be with you. Yeah. Absolutely. I think

1042
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 1: some people might wonder why we're always getting into the

1043
00:59:32,800 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 1: weeds on anti trust questions, and it's because, actually, anti

1044
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:37,640
Speaker 1: trust has become a little bit sexy. There's a lot

1045
00:59:37,760 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 1: of political kind of conflict wrapped up in this question.

1046
00:59:41,720 --> 00:59:45,720
Speaker 1: It's true though, because and Congressman Buck, you've really been

1047
00:59:45,760 --> 00:59:48,840
Speaker 1: at the center of what's become I think a reasonable

1048
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 1: litmus test for people on the right concerned about consolidation

1049
00:59:52,720 --> 00:59:55,880
Speaker 1: and concentration of power in these massive tech companies. If

1050
00:59:55,920 --> 00:59:58,280
Speaker 1: you can get on board with some of the anti

1051
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:01,600
Speaker 1: trust legislation that you've proposed, pushed for, and just passed

1052
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:04,240
Speaker 1: the House recently, what on earth are you doing as

1053
01:00:04,280 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: a conservative? And I want to start by asking you, Congressman,

1054
01:00:08,120 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 1: if you think that in a new Congress come January,

1055
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,360
Speaker 1: the package of anti trust legislation that was passed in September.

1056
01:00:14,760 --> 01:00:17,040
Speaker 1: I thinks so a lot of work from you will

1057
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 1: be taken up by the Senate by potentially Amy Klobaschar.

1058
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:22,600
Speaker 1: Do you have any hopes that this goes to the

1059
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 1: Senate actually come January right away? Well, I don't know

1060
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:28,560
Speaker 1: about January. I think in the lame duck session in

1061
01:00:28,760 --> 01:00:31,560
Speaker 1: November and December, there's a good chance that it would

1062
01:00:31,560 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: be taken up by the Senate. One of these bills

1063
01:00:33,960 --> 01:00:36,000
Speaker 1: is really the one bill we passed in the House

1064
01:00:36,080 --> 01:00:38,880
Speaker 1: was a combination of three bills. One of the bills

1065
01:00:38,920 --> 01:00:43,040
Speaker 1: has already passed the Senate unanimously, another one has passed

1066
01:00:43,040 --> 01:00:47,560
Speaker 1: through the Judiciary Committee and the Senate unanimously, and the

1067
01:00:47,680 --> 01:00:51,480
Speaker 1: last bill is a Senator Holly bill that I think

1068
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:55,800
Speaker 1: has bried broad bipartisan support. So I think that the

1069
01:00:55,880 --> 01:01:00,880
Speaker 1: bill will pass the Senate in November December. In particular

1070
01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:05,680
Speaker 1: with Clover Char's major competition bill, it does seem like

1071
01:01:05,720 --> 01:01:07,520
Speaker 1: if it goes to the floor, it has at least

1072
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:10,720
Speaker 1: the sixty votes needed to pass, but getting it onto

1073
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:14,040
Speaker 1: the floor has been the major obstacle for its backers.

1074
01:01:14,360 --> 01:01:17,320
Speaker 1: What is your sense of the White House's appetite for

1075
01:01:17,400 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: this fight at this point, are they are they sending

1076
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:21,960
Speaker 1: signals to the Hill that they wanted that they want

1077
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 1: this to get done during the lame Duck. You know,

1078
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:29,080
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I think every group has

1079
01:01:29,720 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 1: conflicts within the group. So the House Democrats have conflicts

1080
01:01:33,880 --> 01:01:37,400
Speaker 1: Zoe Lofgren taking the side against and I trust we

1081
01:01:37,600 --> 01:01:41,160
Speaker 1: have conflicts within the House Republicans. The White House is

1082
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:44,600
Speaker 1: in the same situation. I think they have folks in

1083
01:01:44,680 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 1: the White House who are very strongly in favor of

1084
01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:49,960
Speaker 1: competition in this in the big Zech area. I think

1085
01:01:50,000 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 1: there are folks in the White House who are sending

1086
01:01:52,040 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: other signals. So I don't think it is a unified

1087
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 1: message at this point. Clearly, the Federal Trade Commission and

1088
01:01:59,760 --> 01:02:02,120
Speaker 1: the trust A Vision at the Department of Justice have

1089
01:02:02,280 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: sent a very clear signal that they want to see

1090
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:07,240
Speaker 1: these bills pass. The White House has generally been supportive.

1091
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:13,720
Speaker 1: Hopefully they will make sure that the Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer,

1092
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:17,280
Speaker 1: gets the message that this is important and has to

1093
01:02:17,360 --> 01:02:20,720
Speaker 1: be done in the last two months of this Congress. Yeah,

1094
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: and of course Chuck Schumer's daughters both work for tech firms,

1095
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: so it's an uphill battle on the left as well.

1096
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:29,880
Speaker 1: And Congressman I want to play devil's advocate, because the

1097
01:02:29,960 --> 01:02:33,360
Speaker 1: argument that was coming from particularly Jim Jordan was it

1098
01:02:33,600 --> 01:02:35,560
Speaker 1: was sort of saying, why would we want to give

1099
01:02:35,600 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 1: more power to someone who has a hard leftist, a

1100
01:02:39,040 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: progressive like Lena Khan right now to sort of advance

1101
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:47,600
Speaker 1: potentially the woke agenda with this package of legislation. Why

1102
01:02:47,760 --> 01:02:50,880
Speaker 1: is it not the case that sort of subverting what's

1103
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 1: seen as free market dogma, conservative dogma and giving some

1104
01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 1: muscle and some power to anti trust enforcers is empowering

1105
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 1: a sort of leftist government. What is it about this

1106
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 1: package of legislation that you see as worth empowering government. Well,

1107
01:03:08,520 --> 01:03:11,600
Speaker 1: there's a number of counter arguments to that, and and frankly,

1108
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: I just think it's an argument that you throw up

1109
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:16,240
Speaker 1: to give people cover not to vote for something that's

1110
01:03:16,280 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 1: a really good bill. We're talking about the funding portion

1111
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:22,440
Speaker 1: of the bill that just passed the House. And if

1112
01:03:22,480 --> 01:03:25,520
Speaker 1: we don't fund the FBI, or we don't fund the

1113
01:03:25,600 --> 01:03:29,320
Speaker 1: Department of Justice, or we don't fund whatever group that

1114
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: conservatives are upset about at the moment, it has ramifications

1115
01:03:34,520 --> 01:03:37,680
Speaker 1: in other areas than just a particular area that they

1116
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:41,920
Speaker 1: are taking and running to the left with. So, you know,

1117
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 1: an example, the FTC would be able to hire staff

1118
01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:52,720
Speaker 1: until this became law, which would be next fiscal year.

1119
01:03:53,400 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 1: Then they would go through a hiring process, which takes

1120
01:03:56,240 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 1: the FDC to be able to you know, increase off

1121
01:04:00,160 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: supplies and support staff and all the other things they

1122
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:05,920
Speaker 1: have to do. It's at least a two year process

1123
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:08,640
Speaker 1: before they get people on board. There's a very good

1124
01:04:08,720 --> 01:04:11,680
Speaker 1: chance that a Republican president is an office in two years.

1125
01:04:12,080 --> 01:04:15,440
Speaker 1: We have a whole new Federal Trade Commission leadership in

1126
01:04:15,560 --> 01:04:20,800
Speaker 1: two years, and we are doing what Republicans want done,

1127
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:24,760
Speaker 1: what Republicans wanted in the Trump administration. What the Trump

1128
01:04:24,760 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 1: administration directed the FTC in the Anti Trust Division to

1129
01:04:29,120 --> 01:04:32,120
Speaker 1: do was to go after big Tech. There were several

1130
01:04:32,200 --> 01:04:39,440
Speaker 1: lawsuits filed with states and by themselves those two entities.

1131
01:04:40,240 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 1: And so the idea that somehow we're empowering Nina Khan

1132
01:04:43,520 --> 01:04:47,840
Speaker 1: tomorrow by passing this bill is just nonsense. And for

1133
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:50,880
Speaker 1: antitrust advocates on both the left and the right, one

1134
01:04:50,920 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 1: of the things that's been most disappointing to them about

1135
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:56,920
Speaker 1: the Republican posture here has been the kind of behavior

1136
01:04:56,960 --> 01:05:01,000
Speaker 1: of the Republicans on the FTC, the Republican commissioners there,

1137
01:05:01,600 --> 01:05:05,760
Speaker 1: and one of them, who was Noah Phillips, just recently

1138
01:05:05,800 --> 01:05:08,840
Speaker 1: retired and has already joined the law firm. He recused

1139
01:05:08,960 --> 01:05:14,080
Speaker 1: from a vote on Amazon because he was already negotiating

1140
01:05:14,080 --> 01:05:17,520
Speaker 1: apparently employment with Kravat, the law firm that is representing

1141
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:22,040
Speaker 1: Amazon Amazon and its MGM merger. But what's important here

1142
01:05:22,080 --> 01:05:24,200
Speaker 1: is that that's going to open up a critical position

1143
01:05:24,440 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: on the FTC. And if kind of Republican populace, you know,

1144
01:05:28,840 --> 01:05:31,800
Speaker 1: who believe in antitrust is a serious issue, can start

1145
01:05:31,880 --> 01:05:36,600
Speaker 1: populating these commissions with like minded people, then you could

1146
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 1: end up with a kind of kind of permanent majority

1147
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:44,080
Speaker 1: on these commissions of people who are skeptical of corporate power.

1148
01:05:44,600 --> 01:05:47,600
Speaker 1: Is there any movement inside your kind of your faction

1149
01:05:47,760 --> 01:05:51,120
Speaker 1: of the Republican Party to make sure that whoever gets

1150
01:05:51,160 --> 01:05:54,840
Speaker 1: sent to replace Phillips is somebody who comes kind of

1151
01:05:54,960 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 1: comes from your camp or is the kind of more

1152
01:05:57,280 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 1: pro business wing. Still when it comes to the pipeline

1153
01:06:01,760 --> 01:06:06,440
Speaker 1: of commissioners and regulators, well, I tell you you're asking

1154
01:06:06,480 --> 01:06:10,320
Speaker 1: the wrong person. Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden

1155
01:06:10,480 --> 01:06:12,640
Speaker 1: are the three, or whoever's running the White House are

1156
01:06:12,680 --> 01:06:15,680
Speaker 1: the three people who are going to be making that decision.

1157
01:06:15,920 --> 01:06:18,560
Speaker 1: I think they're reviewing applications at this point. I hope

1158
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:23,200
Speaker 1: that the person that is appointed isn't skeptical of corporate

1159
01:06:23,320 --> 01:06:25,960
Speaker 1: power as much as they are pro competition as much

1160
01:06:26,000 --> 01:06:30,560
Speaker 1: as they are someone who wants to see competition as

1161
01:06:30,640 --> 01:06:33,680
Speaker 1: the answer to the many ills that we see with

1162
01:06:34,080 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 1: big tech. So I don't know if they're considering someone

1163
01:06:38,080 --> 01:06:41,000
Speaker 1: who is in favor of these lawsuits. I hope they are,

1164
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:44,960
Speaker 1: because these lawsuits are really This bill that passed the

1165
01:06:45,080 --> 01:06:48,960
Speaker 1: House was supported by Mike Lee, was supported by many

1166
01:06:49,080 --> 01:06:54,440
Speaker 1: senators who spoke up vigorously to talk about the benefits

1167
01:06:54,480 --> 01:06:57,120
Speaker 1: that this anti trust package would have. So I don't

1168
01:06:57,120 --> 01:07:01,560
Speaker 1: think it is just a populist issue. Mike Lee's a

1169
01:07:01,720 --> 01:07:05,320
Speaker 1: very strong advocate for the consumer welfare standard. He supported

1170
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:08,160
Speaker 1: this bill. I think that we can find someone who

1171
01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:11,960
Speaker 1: is a strong advocate for anti trust as a solution

1172
01:07:12,440 --> 01:07:16,120
Speaker 1: that will be able to move forward with these lawsuits

1173
01:07:16,160 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 1: against big tech. Yeah, and in general, do you have

1174
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:21,240
Speaker 1: a sense of where Republican leadership stands on this? As

1175
01:07:21,520 --> 01:07:23,480
Speaker 1: you mentioned Mitch McConnell, and it's sort of harder to

1176
01:07:23,480 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 1: know where Mitch McConnell is on anti trust. But over

1177
01:07:25,880 --> 01:07:28,440
Speaker 1: on the House side, if Kevin McCarthy is Speaker of

1178
01:07:28,520 --> 01:07:31,560
Speaker 1: the House and is overseeing some of this legislation and

1179
01:07:32,080 --> 01:07:35,720
Speaker 1: oversight and processes, do you have a stance on whether

1180
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:39,120
Speaker 1: he's willing to really seriously look at at anti trust.

1181
01:07:40,160 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: I think Kevin sees other possible solutions with Section two

1182
01:07:43,880 --> 01:07:46,520
Speaker 1: thirty and with some privacy laws. I've been advocating with

1183
01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:49,600
Speaker 1: Kevin and others in the Republican Conference that we need

1184
01:07:49,680 --> 01:07:52,320
Speaker 1: to use anti trust as one of the solutions. Obviously,

1185
01:07:52,440 --> 01:07:55,640
Speaker 1: Kevin voted against, as did Jim Jordan, the anti trust

1186
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:59,600
Speaker 1: package that was passed. There was sort of an informal

1187
01:07:59,680 --> 01:08:03,160
Speaker 1: whip that was going on where members were discouraged from

1188
01:08:03,240 --> 01:08:06,840
Speaker 1: voting for this package. And this package was really the

1189
01:08:06,920 --> 01:08:11,920
Speaker 1: sort of minimal package that we have. There's fifteen bills.

1190
01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:14,960
Speaker 1: The three that were offered were the least intruce of

1191
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:19,240
Speaker 1: the least burdensome in the tech area. And so I

1192
01:08:19,400 --> 01:08:22,880
Speaker 1: think that Kevin is somewhat skeptical, but I hope that

1193
01:08:22,960 --> 01:08:26,479
Speaker 1: as we move forward, he sees what's happening in this election,

1194
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:31,520
Speaker 1: he sees what's happening in speech, generally, he will recognize

1195
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:35,800
Speaker 1: the threat to our democracy from a few companies controlling

1196
01:08:35,880 --> 01:08:40,280
Speaker 1: information flow in a time of elections. Yeah, it has

1197
01:08:40,320 --> 01:08:42,719
Speaker 1: seemed to me that the concern on the right around

1198
01:08:42,800 --> 01:08:46,519
Speaker 1: big tech censorship was really kind of the opening for

1199
01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:50,479
Speaker 1: this conversation around anti trust. And I'm wondering if that's

1200
01:08:50,520 --> 01:08:53,920
Speaker 1: the beginning and the end of the conversation on the right.

1201
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 1: In other words, Okay, okay, you were concerned about big

1202
01:08:57,560 --> 01:08:59,640
Speaker 1: tech censorship. So we can either do anti trust or,

1203
01:08:59,680 --> 01:09:02,600
Speaker 1: as you said, Leader McCarthy, can look for other solutions

1204
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:05,840
Speaker 1: like section two thirty, which then also says we don't

1205
01:09:05,840 --> 01:09:08,280
Speaker 1: need to look too far beyond big tech, like we

1206
01:09:08,360 --> 01:09:11,080
Speaker 1: don't need to follow Lena Khan at looking at kind

1207
01:09:11,080 --> 01:09:16,439
Speaker 1: of poultry industry consolidation or consolidation and railroads consolidation all

1208
01:09:16,479 --> 01:09:20,679
Speaker 1: over the economy and the problems it's that it's creating.

1209
01:09:21,040 --> 01:09:25,519
Speaker 1: So when you talk to your colleagues, what are they

1210
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:28,560
Speaker 1: more motivated by a competitive economy or is it just

1211
01:09:28,680 --> 01:09:32,000
Speaker 1: kind of anger at big tech and censorship? And once

1212
01:09:32,160 --> 01:09:34,559
Speaker 1: that issue is kind of off the table, they're okay

1213
01:09:35,080 --> 01:09:39,200
Speaker 1: with concentration, you know, corporate concentration. Well, I think big

1214
01:09:39,320 --> 01:09:42,640
Speaker 1: tech is really a unique situation where we have is

1215
01:09:43,880 --> 01:09:47,920
Speaker 1: a change in our economy to e commerce, to social

1216
01:09:48,040 --> 01:09:52,120
Speaker 1: media interaction that we haven't seen before. And the last

1217
01:09:52,520 --> 01:09:56,240
Speaker 1: really major change was the Industrial Revolution, and the Sherman

1218
01:09:56,479 --> 01:09:59,519
Speaker 1: Act and the Clayton Act were enacted during that time

1219
01:09:59,600 --> 01:10:04,519
Speaker 1: period because of the shift in the economy and how

1220
01:10:04,720 --> 01:10:08,360
Speaker 1: some people, very smart people look. I give these Jeff

1221
01:10:08,400 --> 01:10:11,360
Speaker 1: Bezos Mark Zuckerberg all the credit in the world. They

1222
01:10:11,400 --> 01:10:15,760
Speaker 1: are incredibly bright and they saw what was coming and

1223
01:10:15,840 --> 01:10:18,479
Speaker 1: they took advantage of it. So I think big tech

1224
01:10:18,640 --> 01:10:23,360
Speaker 1: is unique. I also think that competition in the marketplace

1225
01:10:23,600 --> 01:10:26,280
Speaker 1: is healthy, and we need to look at competition in

1226
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:28,080
Speaker 1: the marketplace, but we need to look at it with

1227
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:31,479
Speaker 1: a view towards what's best for consumers. Big tech is

1228
01:10:31,920 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 1: clearly not a consumer friendly, especially in the long term

1229
01:10:37,920 --> 01:10:43,439
Speaker 1: consumer friendly businesses, and so we have to address big

1230
01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:46,719
Speaker 1: tech separately in how we look at the economy overall.

1231
01:10:47,040 --> 01:10:51,200
Speaker 1: So I think the Republicans generally don't want to punish success.

1232
01:10:51,720 --> 01:10:54,080
Speaker 1: We want to celebrate success. We want to make sure

1233
01:10:54,160 --> 01:10:58,920
Speaker 1: that we are staying ahead of our international competitors. Both

1234
01:10:59,040 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 1: nation states and and businesses. But at the same time,

1235
01:11:02,439 --> 01:11:05,680
Speaker 1: we want a competitive economy. So I think Republicans and

1236
01:11:05,760 --> 01:11:08,400
Speaker 1: Democrats may balance a little bit differently when we come

1237
01:11:08,439 --> 01:11:11,000
Speaker 1: to anti trust. I don't think we have that difference

1238
01:11:11,040 --> 01:11:13,920
Speaker 1: in balance when it comes to big tech. A broader

1239
01:11:14,040 --> 01:11:16,200
Speaker 1: question actually along those same lines, I was just thinking

1240
01:11:16,280 --> 01:11:20,920
Speaker 1: as you were talking, I wondered if, seeing and witnessing

1241
01:11:21,000 --> 01:11:24,000
Speaker 1: up close as somebody who's working on anti trust issues

1242
01:11:24,080 --> 01:11:27,760
Speaker 1: related to big tech, the kind of corporate capture of

1243
01:11:28,280 --> 01:11:31,360
Speaker 1: so many officials in Washington, d C, whether they're on

1244
01:11:31,439 --> 01:11:35,679
Speaker 1: the FTC, whether they're you know, congressional staff that are

1245
01:11:35,760 --> 01:11:39,839
Speaker 1: behind the scenes and you know, influencing votes for their members,

1246
01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:43,960
Speaker 1: has that changed the way that you see the sort

1247
01:11:44,000 --> 01:11:48,000
Speaker 1: of concentration and consolidation of power more generally as a

1248
01:11:48,120 --> 01:11:51,519
Speaker 1: Republican or as a conservative. Looking at, for instance, what

1249
01:11:52,160 --> 01:11:55,920
Speaker 1: types of mergers Republican appointed people on the FTC have

1250
01:11:56,200 --> 01:11:58,800
Speaker 1: historically allowed, and Democratic appointed people in the FTC have

1251
01:11:59,040 --> 01:12:02,479
Speaker 1: historically allowed things even happened under President Obama, has it

1252
01:12:02,720 --> 01:12:06,920
Speaker 1: opened up your eyes to any like new issues as

1253
01:12:07,000 --> 01:12:09,240
Speaker 1: it pertains to anti trust, or as it pertains to

1254
01:12:09,840 --> 01:12:14,640
Speaker 1: the way that corporations actually really do block competition in

1255
01:12:14,680 --> 01:12:19,240
Speaker 1: the marketplace, maybe more than conservatives have historically been worried about.

1256
01:12:20,400 --> 01:12:21,920
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure I understand your question.

1257
01:12:22,240 --> 01:12:24,120
Speaker 1: Are you talking about the influence that they exert in

1258
01:12:24,200 --> 01:12:26,600
Speaker 1: the legislative process of the influence they exert in the

1259
01:12:27,320 --> 01:12:33,599
Speaker 1: executive branch side? Kind of in Washington in general, because

1260
01:12:33,760 --> 01:12:35,560
Speaker 1: it is in all of those different spaces, and you

1261
01:12:35,640 --> 01:12:38,839
Speaker 1: see it really clearly in big tech, and as you say, Congressman,

1262
01:12:38,880 --> 01:12:40,560
Speaker 1: it is sort of a different you know, trying to

1263
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:44,240
Speaker 1: apply comic charriator. Big tech is an interesting idea and

1264
01:12:44,439 --> 01:12:47,439
Speaker 1: sort of highlights how different it is. But have you

1265
01:12:47,800 --> 01:12:49,599
Speaker 1: has it opened it up your eyes to maybe broader

1266
01:12:49,680 --> 01:12:54,840
Speaker 1: problems in this question of competition and consolidation. Well, I

1267
01:12:54,920 --> 01:12:57,120
Speaker 1: wrote a book called Drain the Swamp several years ago,

1268
01:12:57,200 --> 01:12:59,800
Speaker 1: so I think my eyes were opened to just how

1269
01:13:01,640 --> 01:13:06,439
Speaker 1: business conducts itself in the legislative process and on the

1270
01:13:07,360 --> 01:13:09,920
Speaker 1: administrative side over the executive branch. But I think that

1271
01:13:11,280 --> 01:13:16,759
Speaker 1: these companies Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google have a huge amount

1272
01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:21,439
Speaker 1: of resources. They spend a ton of money lobbying Congress,

1273
01:13:21,479 --> 01:13:25,479
Speaker 1: And by lobbying, I mean giving checks to members for

1274
01:13:25,640 --> 01:13:28,519
Speaker 1: their re election campaign or giving checks to candidates who

1275
01:13:28,560 --> 01:13:32,040
Speaker 1: are running, They run commercials. They ran over thirty million

1276
01:13:32,080 --> 01:13:36,200
Speaker 1: dollars of commercials and members districts in one month. So

1277
01:13:36,840 --> 01:13:41,519
Speaker 1: absolutely they are They are fighting what they believe is

1278
01:13:41,760 --> 01:13:46,919
Speaker 1: a battle that is somewhat existential to their monopoly status,

1279
01:13:47,520 --> 01:13:52,720
Speaker 1: and they're going to use every resource, every trick that

1280
01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:57,200
Speaker 1: they can to fight this battle. So yeah, it's opened

1281
01:13:57,240 --> 01:14:01,320
Speaker 1: my eyes even more to just how intense an issue

1282
01:14:01,400 --> 01:14:08,519
Speaker 1: like this can get when we're facing the four largest companies,

1283
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:10,799
Speaker 1: and really in the history of the world, these companies,

1284
01:14:11,760 --> 01:14:16,560
Speaker 1: their net worth is larger than all but something like

1285
01:14:16,640 --> 01:14:20,519
Speaker 1: twenty countries in the world. That the gross national product

1286
01:14:20,560 --> 01:14:23,840
Speaker 1: of twenty countries in the world. We're talking about absolutely

1287
01:14:23,960 --> 01:14:29,280
Speaker 1: huge companies. And I don't suggest that huge is bad.

1288
01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:33,080
Speaker 1: I do suggest that when you have a monopoly, you

1289
01:14:33,200 --> 01:14:36,280
Speaker 1: can one use the resources from the money the revenue

1290
01:14:36,280 --> 01:14:38,880
Speaker 1: that you make in that monopoly. But also when you

1291
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:42,360
Speaker 1: have a monopoly on information, you can use your search

1292
01:14:42,520 --> 01:14:46,320
Speaker 1: engine to impact politics, you can use your social media

1293
01:14:46,800 --> 01:14:50,439
Speaker 1: influence to impact politics. And I think that's what's going on.

1294
01:14:50,600 --> 01:14:54,040
Speaker 1: It's even more important than what we see in Federal

1295
01:14:54,040 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 1: Election Commission reports. And you had mentioned that there's some

1296
01:14:57,880 --> 01:15:02,800
Speaker 1: disagreement within the administration over how far to push how

1297
01:15:02,880 --> 01:15:06,439
Speaker 1: hard to push on anti trust. You obviously, both the

1298
01:15:06,560 --> 01:15:09,679
Speaker 1: FTC and the DOJ are strong on this, but I'm wondering,

1299
01:15:09,760 --> 01:15:12,400
Speaker 1: from your perspective, where the where the weakest spots are

1300
01:15:12,479 --> 01:15:16,120
Speaker 1: coming from. Are you thinking Commerce Department or is there

1301
01:15:16,120 --> 01:15:18,000
Speaker 1: anybody that you can point to or any kind of

1302
01:15:18,040 --> 01:15:21,880
Speaker 1: power center within the White House that you think is

1303
01:15:21,960 --> 01:15:26,760
Speaker 1: playing a particularly kind of slow walking role here. Yeah,

1304
01:15:26,800 --> 01:15:29,479
Speaker 1: I don't really know the White House politics well enough.

1305
01:15:29,560 --> 01:15:34,600
Speaker 1: I just know that when requests have been made for supports,

1306
01:15:34,920 --> 01:15:36,960
Speaker 1: it has been slow walked at times, and I know

1307
01:15:37,120 --> 01:15:42,000
Speaker 1: that there are differences of opinion in the White House

1308
01:15:42,120 --> 01:15:44,280
Speaker 1: as to how to proceed in this. I think that

1309
01:15:44,439 --> 01:15:49,200
Speaker 1: the FTC and the Anti Trust Division have been very

1310
01:15:49,280 --> 01:15:53,519
Speaker 1: strong and very consistent in how they want to approach

1311
01:15:53,840 --> 01:15:57,800
Speaker 1: the work with big Tech. And one last question for

1312
01:15:57,840 --> 01:16:02,439
Speaker 1: your Congressman, this anti trust fight over the package past

1313
01:16:02,520 --> 01:16:06,320
Speaker 1: last month got a little rocky just among Freedom Caucus members.

1314
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:09,760
Speaker 1: We've talked about Congressman Jordan, and obviously, if Republicans win

1315
01:16:09,880 --> 01:16:13,799
Speaker 1: back the House, the Freedom Caucus becomes very very powerful,

1316
01:16:14,200 --> 01:16:16,799
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering if this opened up, if this battle

1317
01:16:16,880 --> 01:16:19,960
Speaker 1: opened up any rifts in the Freedom Caucus, or if

1318
01:16:20,000 --> 01:16:21,800
Speaker 1: it's sort of gotten to a point where the Freedom

1319
01:16:21,800 --> 01:16:24,519
Speaker 1: Caucus will be less effective because of these disagreements, or

1320
01:16:24,560 --> 01:16:27,599
Speaker 1: because it shifted the internal dynamics, or is it something

1321
01:16:27,640 --> 01:16:31,960
Speaker 1: we're sort of like agree to disagree and move on. Well,

1322
01:16:32,479 --> 01:16:34,160
Speaker 1: I have to tell I was a founding member of

1323
01:16:34,160 --> 01:16:37,280
Speaker 1: the Freedom Caucus back in twenty fifteen, and the whole

1324
01:16:37,360 --> 01:16:39,360
Speaker 1: idea of the Freedom Caucus was to get a group

1325
01:16:39,400 --> 01:16:43,479
Speaker 1: of people, group of members together one night a week

1326
01:16:43,600 --> 01:16:47,360
Speaker 1: during the time we're in session, to debate the issues

1327
01:16:47,439 --> 01:16:49,439
Speaker 1: that we were going to be facing. And that's exactly

1328
01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:53,520
Speaker 1: what the Freedom Caucus does is disagree, and by disagreeing,

1329
01:16:53,640 --> 01:16:55,479
Speaker 1: we listen to each other and we end up with

1330
01:16:55,560 --> 01:16:59,800
Speaker 1: a stronger position, sometimes a position that the Freedom Caucus takes,

1331
01:17:00,080 --> 01:17:04,280
Speaker 1: sometimes a position that individual members take. I was encouraged

1332
01:17:04,360 --> 01:17:07,160
Speaker 1: that a dozen Freedom Caucus members and I think it

1333
01:17:07,280 --> 01:17:11,800
Speaker 1: was seven members of the Judiciary Committee went against leadership

1334
01:17:12,400 --> 01:17:16,200
Speaker 1: both of the Judiciary Committee and in the House Republican

1335
01:17:16,560 --> 01:17:20,760
Speaker 1: Conference to vote for these bills. So I don't think

1336
01:17:20,760 --> 01:17:23,559
Speaker 1: there's a rift in the sense that there's some sort

1337
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:26,240
Speaker 1: of personal animus out there. I think that there is

1338
01:17:27,160 --> 01:17:32,519
Speaker 1: a strong disagreement and a strong discussion that's taking place,

1339
01:17:32,640 --> 01:17:36,080
Speaker 1: and it will help us in creating better laws down

1340
01:17:36,120 --> 01:17:39,120
Speaker 1: the road. Do you expect any of the other bills

1341
01:17:39,280 --> 01:17:42,320
Speaker 1: that the House has worked on have a shot at

1342
01:17:42,360 --> 01:17:46,880
Speaker 1: getting through this cycle or are you mostly consolidating now

1343
01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:49,800
Speaker 1: and just pushing forward on the ones that have gotten

1344
01:17:49,840 --> 01:17:53,120
Speaker 1: through and trying to get them onto Biden's desk. Well,

1345
01:17:53,160 --> 01:17:55,000
Speaker 1: the House has done its job in terms of the

1346
01:17:55,320 --> 01:18:00,360
Speaker 1: three bills that were combined into one vote. Now that's

1347
01:18:00,400 --> 01:18:02,360
Speaker 1: up to the Senate. I think the Senate will pass that.

1348
01:18:02,439 --> 01:18:05,000
Speaker 1: I think that will get to President Biden's desk. I

1349
01:18:05,080 --> 01:18:09,040
Speaker 1: think the other bills we've passed a number out of

1350
01:18:09,080 --> 01:18:12,639
Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee, and there have been some other bills

1351
01:18:12,680 --> 01:18:14,760
Speaker 1: that passed out of I'm sorry, we passed a number

1352
01:18:14,760 --> 01:18:17,080
Speaker 1: of a House Judiciary part been other bills that have

1353
01:18:17,120 --> 01:18:19,640
Speaker 1: passed out of Senate Judiciary Committee. So I think that

1354
01:18:20,120 --> 01:18:23,840
Speaker 1: there will be a close look at some of those bills.

1355
01:18:24,200 --> 01:18:27,240
Speaker 1: We'll try to get them to the House floor. Leadership

1356
01:18:27,640 --> 01:18:29,960
Speaker 1: in the Senate and the House may decide to put

1357
01:18:30,000 --> 01:18:33,479
Speaker 1: some of those into the omnibus package that always passes

1358
01:18:33,760 --> 01:18:36,599
Speaker 1: on Christmas Eve. And I expect an omnimous to pass

1359
01:18:36,640 --> 01:18:40,200
Speaker 1: again on Christmas Eve, and so there may be some

1360
01:18:40,400 --> 01:18:43,280
Speaker 1: more legislation that passes. I think people realize that the

1361
01:18:43,360 --> 01:18:46,560
Speaker 1: clock is running out. It's much less likely that the

1362
01:18:46,680 --> 01:18:52,880
Speaker 1: Republican Conference under Kevin McCarthy's leadership as Speaker will move

1363
01:18:53,000 --> 01:18:55,040
Speaker 1: anti trust bills, and so there is a sense of

1364
01:18:55,200 --> 01:18:57,719
Speaker 1: urgency to get things done in the next two months.

1365
01:18:59,040 --> 01:19:01,439
Speaker 1: I mean, why is that? I think because we talk

1366
01:19:01,479 --> 01:19:04,720
Speaker 1: a lot about this populist moment, but then at the

1367
01:19:04,760 --> 01:19:10,120
Speaker 1: same time, everybody understands that if McCarthy becomes speaker, that

1368
01:19:10,320 --> 01:19:13,920
Speaker 1: these big companies are in better shape and less likely

1369
01:19:14,000 --> 01:19:17,880
Speaker 1: to see anti trust legislation get past. So why is

1370
01:19:17,960 --> 01:19:20,360
Speaker 1: that and what can people on the outside do to

1371
01:19:20,439 --> 01:19:23,280
Speaker 1: kind of change that dynamic. Well, I'll tell you, I

1372
01:19:23,360 --> 01:19:26,240
Speaker 1: blame myself. I haven't done a good enough job of

1373
01:19:26,400 --> 01:19:29,600
Speaker 1: working with Kevin McCarthy, working with Kevin McCarthy's staff, and

1374
01:19:29,720 --> 01:19:33,679
Speaker 1: making sure they understand the significance of anti trust laws.

1375
01:19:33,720 --> 01:19:36,920
Speaker 1: The great history that we have in the Republican Party

1376
01:19:37,080 --> 01:19:40,000
Speaker 1: with anti trust laws, how anti trust has evolved with

1377
01:19:40,160 --> 01:19:45,000
Speaker 1: Republican conservative thinkers like Milton Freeman and Judge Bork, and

1378
01:19:45,120 --> 01:19:47,599
Speaker 1: so I need to do a better job of working

1379
01:19:48,080 --> 01:19:50,240
Speaker 1: with some of the skeptics that we have in the

1380
01:19:50,360 --> 01:19:55,120
Speaker 1: House and getting things passed. I think Kevin McCarthy really

1381
01:19:55,400 --> 01:19:59,320
Speaker 1: is a mathematician. He looks at the number of votes.

1382
01:19:59,360 --> 01:20:01,920
Speaker 1: That's something need to get to two eighteen. If a

1383
01:20:02,040 --> 01:20:05,479
Speaker 1: majority of those Republicans are going to vote for that,

1384
01:20:06,479 --> 01:20:09,240
Speaker 1: he will consider it. And that's my job to make

1385
01:20:09,280 --> 01:20:12,840
Speaker 1: sure that I present that to the news speaker in

1386
01:20:13,160 --> 01:20:16,120
Speaker 1: a way that we can get anti trust bills passed.

1387
01:20:16,680 --> 01:20:19,240
Speaker 1: We'll be following that very very closely. We'll send him

1388
01:20:19,240 --> 01:20:21,280
Speaker 1: this video. That's right, that's right. I actually have a

1389
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:23,639
Speaker 1: piece coming out about it this week too, So Congressman Kembuck,

1390
01:20:23,760 --> 01:20:26,120
Speaker 1: we really really appreciate your time. Thank you so much

1391
01:20:26,120 --> 01:20:32,800
Speaker 1: for joining Counterpoints. Thank you absolutely. Hey everyone, this is

1392
01:20:32,880 --> 01:20:35,760
Speaker 1: Ken Clippension with Breaking Points, the Intercept edition. I'm joined

1393
01:20:35,800 --> 01:20:39,200
Speaker 1: today by Khaleid l Jabri, an expert on Sadi Arabia.

1394
01:20:39,400 --> 01:20:42,240
Speaker 1: He has been spitting truth on this subject for a

1395
01:20:42,400 --> 01:20:45,960
Speaker 1: number of years now, realities that you don't often hear

1396
01:20:46,120 --> 01:20:52,960
Speaker 1: from the Washington media that in reality is a wash

1397
01:20:53,080 --> 01:20:55,800
Speaker 1: in Saudi money and Saudi influence. This guy doesn't care

1398
01:20:55,800 --> 01:20:57,519
Speaker 1: about any of that he tells you how it is.

1399
01:20:58,360 --> 01:21:01,400
Speaker 1: And the reason he knows so much, in part is

1400
01:21:01,479 --> 01:21:05,000
Speaker 1: because you know, he is himself from Saudi Arabia. His

1401
01:21:05,160 --> 01:21:08,759
Speaker 1: father is the former intelligence chief, and he's a medical

1402
01:21:08,800 --> 01:21:10,880
Speaker 1: doctor by trade. I think that's part of why he's

1403
01:21:10,880 --> 01:21:13,000
Speaker 1: able to be so candid about these things. He doesn't

1404
01:21:13,040 --> 01:21:16,360
Speaker 1: depend on the think tank circuit for money. But I'm

1405
01:21:16,400 --> 01:21:19,640
Speaker 1: having him here today to talk about the nature of

1406
01:21:19,800 --> 01:21:22,320
Speaker 1: the US Saudi relationship. If you guys can play a

1407
01:21:22,439 --> 01:21:26,240
Speaker 1: video right now of a Saudi prince that I caught

1408
01:21:26,280 --> 01:21:28,240
Speaker 1: wind of the other day, I think it'll give you

1409
01:21:28,320 --> 01:21:31,080
Speaker 1: a sense of where the relationship is at right now.

1410
01:21:31,760 --> 01:21:38,759
Speaker 1: Anybody the challenges the existence of this country and this kingdom,

1411
01:21:40,200 --> 01:21:46,800
Speaker 1: all of us. We are projects off you had and martyrdom.

1412
01:21:47,640 --> 01:21:51,200
Speaker 1: That's my message to anybody that thinks that he can

1413
01:21:51,280 --> 01:21:54,880
Speaker 1: threaten us. All right, Colly, thanks for joining us. Can

1414
01:21:54,920 --> 01:21:56,920
Speaker 1: you explain to everyone who was that in the video

1415
01:21:57,000 --> 01:21:58,960
Speaker 1: we just saw what is the significance of what he said?

1416
01:21:59,200 --> 01:22:01,960
Speaker 1: So thanks for having me. Just the fact he is

1417
01:22:02,040 --> 01:22:04,720
Speaker 1: a prince in terms of being a leader of a

1418
01:22:04,800 --> 01:22:08,200
Speaker 1: tribe that historically ruled the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia.

1419
01:22:08,280 --> 01:22:11,479
Speaker 1: Before you know, the founding king, King Gable, as he's

1420
01:22:11,479 --> 01:22:14,559
Speaker 1: founded the kingdom, so he's not in line for the throne,

1421
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:17,240
Speaker 1: but he is related by blood and marriage to the

1422
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:22,080
Speaker 1: current ruling family. But that's beside the points. For him

1423
01:22:22,160 --> 01:22:24,800
Speaker 1: to have the audacity to issue these threats in the

1424
01:22:24,920 --> 01:22:27,479
Speaker 1: context of a police state in Saudi Arabia where people

1425
01:22:27,600 --> 01:22:30,560
Speaker 1: are being locked up for mild tweets is indicative and

1426
01:22:30,640 --> 01:22:34,200
Speaker 1: symptomatic of the rock bottom that the US Saudi relationships

1427
01:22:34,560 --> 01:22:37,920
Speaker 1: has hit. For him to say that, it means only

1428
01:22:37,960 --> 01:22:40,760
Speaker 1: two things. Either he felt comfortable saying it and feared

1429
01:22:40,800 --> 01:22:43,880
Speaker 1: no repercussions or reprisals, or there might have been an

1430
01:22:43,920 --> 01:22:47,759
Speaker 1: element of endorsement for that kind of messaging that, honestly,

1431
01:22:47,880 --> 01:22:51,839
Speaker 1: as I scroll through Saudi social media, is kind of consistent.

1432
01:22:51,960 --> 01:22:54,799
Speaker 1: Top down. Yeah, that's a really important context to understand.

1433
01:22:54,840 --> 01:22:56,560
Speaker 1: This isn't like in the United States, where it's just

1434
01:22:56,600 --> 01:22:59,920
Speaker 1: some guy you know, is on the freeway filming himself

1435
01:23:00,280 --> 01:23:03,400
Speaker 1: in his car doing some tirade about you know, whatever

1436
01:23:03,479 --> 01:23:07,000
Speaker 1: it is. This is a totalitarian regime that not only

1437
01:23:07,560 --> 01:23:10,200
Speaker 1: has punished people very harshly for speech, but is doing

1438
01:23:10,280 --> 01:23:12,920
Speaker 1: so right now. And just yesterday there was a case

1439
01:23:12,920 --> 01:23:16,720
Speaker 1: of a US citizen from Florida who I believe was

1440
01:23:16,760 --> 01:23:20,160
Speaker 1: detained in the Saudi airport when he went back to Saturabia.

1441
01:23:20,360 --> 01:23:22,960
Speaker 1: He's a dual citizen visiting his family. Can you talk

1442
01:23:22,960 --> 01:23:24,479
Speaker 1: about that a little bit and what that says about

1443
01:23:24,520 --> 01:23:26,080
Speaker 1: what we were just talking. Yeah, so side of the model,

1444
01:23:26,080 --> 01:23:28,439
Speaker 1: he's a sending two year old American Saudi who lives

1445
01:23:28,479 --> 01:23:32,120
Speaker 1: in Florida, and he returned to the Kingdom November twenty one,

1446
01:23:32,640 --> 01:23:35,040
Speaker 1: and only on October third, so a couple of weeks ago,

1447
01:23:35,200 --> 01:23:39,120
Speaker 1: was sentenced to sixteen years in prison for tweeting. And

1448
01:23:39,439 --> 01:23:41,519
Speaker 1: I went through his Twitter account yesterday. You know, there

1449
01:23:41,520 --> 01:23:44,120
Speaker 1: were mild tweets. I really don't know why he was sentenced,

1450
01:23:44,160 --> 01:23:46,680
Speaker 1: and there are some mild critique of the Yemen war,

1451
01:23:47,120 --> 01:23:49,880
Speaker 1: which would have been interpreted as basically going against the

1452
01:23:49,960 --> 01:23:53,200
Speaker 1: Crown Prince Mohammad Vincelman. But what's really troubling is the

1453
01:23:53,320 --> 01:23:57,160
Speaker 1: timing of that sentences. And basically they're happening after the

1454
01:23:57,360 --> 01:23:59,840
Speaker 1: Biden m BS fist bump, which tells us that that

1455
01:24:00,120 --> 01:24:05,240
Speaker 1: trip failed and MBS after receiving Biden and Jeddah is

1456
01:24:05,360 --> 01:24:07,880
Speaker 1: totally unhinged. Something I'm hearing from a lot of people

1457
01:24:07,880 --> 01:24:09,880
Speaker 1: in the human rights community is that after that meeting,

1458
01:24:10,160 --> 01:24:12,799
Speaker 1: there was a sea change in terms of how Muhammad

1459
01:24:12,840 --> 01:24:16,360
Speaker 1: been someone in the Saudi government treated not just dissidents,

1460
01:24:16,720 --> 01:24:21,280
Speaker 1: but even again Americans in prison, you know, essentially hostage situations,

1461
01:24:21,479 --> 01:24:24,000
Speaker 1: and that there was a shift towards him acting as

1462
01:24:24,040 --> 01:24:26,479
Speaker 1: though the senses that he's getting a green light from

1463
01:24:26,560 --> 01:24:27,880
Speaker 1: Washington to go ahead and do these things. Is that

1464
01:24:27,880 --> 01:24:29,560
Speaker 1: the impression you've gotten as well. Yeah, and this is

1465
01:24:29,560 --> 01:24:32,519
Speaker 1: supported by facts. So, like I think President Biden was

1466
01:24:32,680 --> 01:24:36,080
Speaker 1: right to acknowledge the presence of Saudi American hostages in

1467
01:24:36,200 --> 01:24:40,240
Speaker 1: his op ed before the trip, he promised and pledged

1468
01:24:40,280 --> 01:24:42,920
Speaker 1: to free them and remove the remaining restrictions on their

1469
01:24:42,960 --> 01:24:44,679
Speaker 1: travel and to bring them home to the United States.

1470
01:24:45,120 --> 01:24:48,959
Speaker 1: But since that trip, NBS has taken more American hostages

1471
01:24:49,439 --> 01:24:51,960
Speaker 1: and it's not working. And if you are MBS sitting

1472
01:24:51,960 --> 01:24:55,000
Speaker 1: in a room right now, and despite all your misbehaviors,

1473
01:24:55,439 --> 01:24:59,720
Speaker 1: you're not receiving any consequences. You're basically being rewarded with

1474
01:25:00,120 --> 01:25:03,559
Speaker 1: the prestige of the presidential visit by by President Biden

1475
01:25:03,560 --> 01:25:06,759
Speaker 1: and fist bumps. You have zero incentives to change your behavior.

1476
01:25:06,800 --> 01:25:10,360
Speaker 1: If anything, that reinforces your bad behavior. And so maybe

1477
01:25:10,400 --> 01:25:11,880
Speaker 1: that's how we get to a situation where we have

1478
01:25:11,960 --> 01:25:15,320
Speaker 1: a Saudi prince saying that we are what was it

1479
01:25:15,400 --> 01:25:19,240
Speaker 1: projects of Jiha in English? Which is a very interesting

1480
01:25:19,360 --> 01:25:22,040
Speaker 1: choice French in French that you choose to say this

1481
01:25:22,200 --> 01:25:25,280
Speaker 1: in these Western languages, Like, what is the significance of that,

1482
01:25:25,280 --> 01:25:27,160
Speaker 1: because again you're saying, he's to be clear, he's not

1483
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:29,840
Speaker 1: an official, he's not in a line of succession. That said,

1484
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:32,560
Speaker 1: he is a grandson of the founding king, he's a

1485
01:25:32,600 --> 01:25:35,439
Speaker 1: cousin of Mohammed Binsman, the de facto a ruler right now.

1486
01:25:35,840 --> 01:25:38,360
Speaker 1: So what does that say about where we're at with

1487
01:25:38,479 --> 01:25:41,439
Speaker 1: this country? That, as you said before, Biden said, you know,

1488
01:25:41,479 --> 01:25:43,320
Speaker 1: we're going to meet with him. I'm gonna you know,

1489
01:25:44,320 --> 01:25:47,519
Speaker 1: And that's very valuable to somebody like MBS, who's still

1490
01:25:47,520 --> 01:25:49,320
Speaker 1: trying to shore up his authority. He's not yet king

1491
01:25:49,600 --> 01:25:51,720
Speaker 1: to have the American president meet with you. What does

1492
01:25:51,760 --> 01:25:55,000
Speaker 1: that say about what that meeting accomplished? It basically failed

1493
01:25:55,040 --> 01:25:59,439
Speaker 1: on blood with an accelerated repression campaign by MBS, including

1494
01:25:59,479 --> 01:26:01,800
Speaker 1: against more American citizen, and it failed on oil with

1495
01:26:02,000 --> 01:26:04,400
Speaker 1: what we just saw recently. I think one of the

1496
01:26:04,960 --> 01:26:07,639
Speaker 1: reasoning internationale behind that visit is to try and relieve

1497
01:26:08,520 --> 01:26:10,880
Speaker 1: you know, Americans at the gas bump on the short

1498
01:26:10,960 --> 01:26:13,000
Speaker 1: term and their long term, to try and squeeze putin

1499
01:26:13,040 --> 01:26:16,640
Speaker 1: in Russia. And I think both objectives fail miserably. And

1500
01:26:16,880 --> 01:26:19,120
Speaker 1: again there's a lot of debate before the visit, well

1501
01:26:19,280 --> 01:26:22,120
Speaker 1: do we does realism prevail over values? And I think

1502
01:26:22,200 --> 01:26:25,040
Speaker 1: it failed on both. And you see this term in DC,

1503
01:26:25,200 --> 01:26:28,160
Speaker 1: and I studied international relations as well, but real potique

1504
01:26:28,240 --> 01:26:31,519
Speaker 1: is not just a term thrown around to justify an

1505
01:26:31,600 --> 01:26:35,160
Speaker 1: amoral foreign policy, especially in the absence of any real wins.

1506
01:26:35,920 --> 01:26:38,479
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, now we have a lot

1507
01:26:38,520 --> 01:26:41,240
Speaker 1: of people thought that the trip was not going to

1508
01:26:41,320 --> 01:26:44,000
Speaker 1: be successful. I actually wrote an opad despite the plight

1509
01:26:44,120 --> 01:26:45,960
Speaker 1: that me and my family are facing, and I urged

1510
01:26:46,000 --> 01:26:48,120
Speaker 1: Biden to fix the relationship. You please talk about that

1511
01:26:48,160 --> 01:26:49,720
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, so, a lot of like you know,

1512
01:26:49,920 --> 01:26:53,160
Speaker 1: I'd like to create a clear differentiation between the insulated

1513
01:26:53,240 --> 01:26:57,240
Speaker 1: ruling family and the Saudi public. I speak for myself,

1514
01:26:57,320 --> 01:26:58,760
Speaker 1: for a lot of Saudi exiles and for a lot

1515
01:26:58,760 --> 01:27:01,400
Speaker 1: of Saudi's insights out your rape. Yeah, we are proponents

1516
01:27:01,439 --> 01:27:04,080
Speaker 1: of a healthy US Saudi relationship. And this is why

1517
01:27:04,560 --> 01:27:06,800
Speaker 1: I urged President Biden to fix it, because as the

1518
01:27:06,800 --> 01:27:10,360
Speaker 1: adult in the room, you can't abdicate the future of

1519
01:27:10,439 --> 01:27:14,200
Speaker 1: the US Satty relationship to a vindictive, you know, volatile psychopath.

1520
01:27:14,280 --> 01:27:16,960
Speaker 1: It's only gonna, you know, go down downhill from there.

1521
01:27:17,479 --> 01:27:20,840
Speaker 1: And I urge President Biden to fix your relationship, albeit

1522
01:27:21,000 --> 01:27:25,760
Speaker 1: with conditions and demands of Sadiy reciprocity, and that didn't happen. Unfortunately,

1523
01:27:26,240 --> 01:27:29,000
Speaker 1: the trip was lopsided. It was one way concessions and

1524
01:27:29,080 --> 01:27:33,040
Speaker 1: that only in bolden MBS to pursue more domestic and

1525
01:27:33,120 --> 01:27:36,320
Speaker 1: transnational oppression, but also reckless foreign policy. And you can

1526
01:27:36,439 --> 01:27:41,040
Speaker 1: argue that President Biden's policy towards Saudi Arabia has undermined

1527
01:27:41,120 --> 01:27:44,280
Speaker 1: his policy in Ukraine and his policy to kind of

1528
01:27:44,479 --> 01:27:48,360
Speaker 1: curb inflation at home as well. Yeah. So the interesting

1529
01:27:48,560 --> 01:27:50,439
Speaker 1: mccualague is, unlike a lot of folks in ourtion, he's

1530
01:27:50,439 --> 01:27:54,639
Speaker 1: a pretty humble guy, and so he doesn't always talk

1531
01:27:54,680 --> 01:27:58,080
Speaker 1: about the kind of extensive education and training that he's

1532
01:27:58,080 --> 01:28:02,599
Speaker 1: had in international relations. So, you know, having that background,

1533
01:28:03,120 --> 01:28:05,799
Speaker 1: what can you tell us about the shift by Satura

1534
01:28:05,800 --> 01:28:08,840
Speaker 1: Abia towards a closer relationship with the Russians. How that

1535
01:28:08,960 --> 01:28:11,439
Speaker 1: relates to NBS and what do you think of Biden

1536
01:28:11,479 --> 01:28:14,840
Speaker 1: administration can do about that? Yeah, so I remember back

1537
01:28:14,920 --> 01:28:17,599
Speaker 1: in March, I had the pleasure of co authoring at

1538
01:28:17,640 --> 01:28:21,240
Speaker 1: Peace in one of the magazines and Foreign Policy, and

1539
01:28:21,760 --> 01:28:24,680
Speaker 1: basically the whole theme was Biden should be tough on

1540
01:28:24,840 --> 01:28:28,000
Speaker 1: NBS for siding with Russia. And yes, this is not

1541
01:28:28,080 --> 01:28:31,080
Speaker 1: written in a contract, but historically the arrangement between Saudi

1542
01:28:31,080 --> 01:28:34,920
Speaker 1: Arabia and the United States was the US would protect

1543
01:28:34,960 --> 01:28:38,479
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, including oil facilities, and in return, Saudi Arabia

1544
01:28:38,520 --> 01:28:41,400
Speaker 1: would manipulate its oil policy to be aligned with US

1545
01:28:41,439 --> 01:28:45,160
Speaker 1: interest And that has lasted more than seven seven decades

1546
01:28:45,240 --> 01:28:49,679
Speaker 1: right now, and I think right now NBS no longer

1547
01:28:49,760 --> 01:28:53,320
Speaker 1: believes that the US is actually, you know, protecting Sata Arabia,

1548
01:28:53,320 --> 01:28:56,479
Speaker 1: which is not true, but that's understood on his part,

1549
01:28:56,560 --> 01:28:59,439
Speaker 1: and this is why he stopped, you know, basically paying

1550
01:28:59,479 --> 01:29:02,920
Speaker 1: his end of the bargain. And it's really you know,

1551
01:29:03,080 --> 01:29:05,880
Speaker 1: for Saudi Arabia, the threat this is one of the

1552
01:29:06,080 --> 01:29:09,400
Speaker 1: kind of outdated expired arguments in DC that no longer

1553
01:29:09,439 --> 01:29:12,080
Speaker 1: holds any water, which is we need to be nice

1554
01:29:12,080 --> 01:29:15,360
Speaker 1: to Saudi Arabia so they don't go to Russia and China. Well,

1555
01:29:15,520 --> 01:29:19,160
Speaker 1: guess what nobody on his sane mind would be betting

1556
01:29:19,240 --> 01:29:22,240
Speaker 1: on Russia today. I mean, which can't handle a small

1557
01:29:22,320 --> 01:29:25,280
Speaker 1: government neck on its border. That they've poured all of

1558
01:29:25,400 --> 01:29:30,240
Speaker 1: these resources and probably decades of intelligence that they've been developing. Absolutely,

1559
01:29:30,280 --> 01:29:32,439
Speaker 1: and there are multiple reasons we'll take them simply. So

1560
01:29:32,560 --> 01:29:36,240
Speaker 1: first of all, it takes time and money to change

1561
01:29:36,439 --> 01:29:39,240
Speaker 1: your military that is dependent on us, AND's a secially

1562
01:29:39,240 --> 01:29:41,519
Speaker 1: important point. You talk to military officers, what they tell you.

1563
01:29:41,720 --> 01:29:43,960
Speaker 1: They give you a much different picture than the arguments,

1564
01:29:44,000 --> 01:29:45,920
Speaker 1: than the excuses. Frankly, that you're here in Washington, abou

1565
01:29:45,960 --> 01:29:47,880
Speaker 1: why we need to tolerate what MBS is doing. Oh

1566
01:29:47,920 --> 01:29:49,400
Speaker 1: we might switch to the Russians, Oh we might switch

1567
01:29:49,400 --> 01:29:51,280
Speaker 1: to the Chinese. Talk to any military officers, they say,

1568
01:29:51,400 --> 01:29:54,160
Speaker 1: that's a decades long project, and then you end up

1569
01:29:54,200 --> 01:29:58,000
Speaker 1: getting worse weapons systems because the Americans have our superior ones. Absolutely,

1570
01:29:58,200 --> 01:29:59,559
Speaker 1: but I imagine this like I'm just going to try

1571
01:29:59,600 --> 01:30:03,280
Speaker 1: to simplif so, Sadi Arabia is grievances with the Biden administration,

1572
01:30:03,439 --> 01:30:06,960
Speaker 1: and honestly, in Trump and and Obama is that you're

1573
01:30:07,080 --> 01:30:09,280
Speaker 1: not doing enough to protect us from Iran. So let's

1574
01:30:09,360 --> 01:30:11,360
Speaker 1: establish one things. Sadi Arabia is afraid of Iran, and

1575
01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:13,680
Speaker 1: Iran is a very bad actor in that region. So

1576
01:30:13,960 --> 01:30:18,160
Speaker 1: because you're not confident in US protection against Iran, you

1577
01:30:18,280 --> 01:30:21,600
Speaker 1: want to pivot to two countries, Russia and China that

1578
01:30:21,720 --> 01:30:26,040
Speaker 1: are actively in bed with Iran. I mean that's prezologic.

1579
01:30:26,120 --> 01:30:28,120
Speaker 1: Like I tried to do so many mental summer assaults

1580
01:30:28,120 --> 01:30:30,160
Speaker 1: and I can't even get it. And actually right now,

1581
01:30:30,400 --> 01:30:33,120
Speaker 1: like imagine Saudi pivoting to Russia to protect it from

1582
01:30:33,200 --> 01:30:37,600
Speaker 1: Iran while Iran is supplying Russia with like drones for

1583
01:30:37,720 --> 01:30:40,760
Speaker 1: their hostile affects on Ukraine. It's just a bluff and

1584
01:30:40,880 --> 01:30:45,000
Speaker 1: it needs to be called. Yeah, I mean in some sense,

1585
01:30:45,040 --> 01:30:47,439
Speaker 1: it's not leverage that should be considered by a Saudis.

1586
01:30:47,760 --> 01:30:50,960
Speaker 1: I think nbs is now has a track record of

1587
01:30:51,080 --> 01:30:55,800
Speaker 1: pursuing dumb policies that would boomerang heur the kingdom. So like, yeah,

1588
01:30:55,840 --> 01:30:58,800
Speaker 1: he would probably pursue Chinese and Russian weapons, but that's

1589
01:30:58,880 --> 01:31:01,280
Speaker 1: not going to be uh, but for his benefits or

1590
01:31:01,320 --> 01:31:04,280
Speaker 1: for Saudi Arabia's benefit. I mean it's almost like trying

1591
01:31:04,360 --> 01:31:07,840
Speaker 1: to scratch the United States face by bringing yourself down

1592
01:31:07,880 --> 01:31:11,200
Speaker 1: to the knees, right, right. It's an important point because

1593
01:31:11,920 --> 01:31:13,599
Speaker 1: again people look at this, they say oil, we need

1594
01:31:13,640 --> 01:31:15,160
Speaker 1: this oil. It's gonna be off the markets. The Russians

1595
01:31:15,200 --> 01:31:16,680
Speaker 1: and the Chinese are gonna get it. And it's like

1596
01:31:16,760 --> 01:31:19,799
Speaker 1: there's very little candor or even you know, just honesty

1597
01:31:19,920 --> 01:31:22,280
Speaker 1: generally about how much leverage we have as the United States.

1598
01:31:22,320 --> 01:31:26,720
Speaker 1: We're at the global superpower militarily economically, to to to

1599
01:31:27,040 --> 01:31:30,880
Speaker 1: to see the same guys that throw their weight around

1600
01:31:31,040 --> 01:31:34,439
Speaker 1: in the UN Security Council and you know, just dictate

1601
01:31:34,479 --> 01:31:35,760
Speaker 1: how things have to go and then suddenly, oh what

1602
01:31:35,840 --> 01:31:38,280
Speaker 1: can we do. Yeah, NBS he's got he's gonna you know,

1603
01:31:38,360 --> 01:31:41,800
Speaker 1: he's he's there, he goes again, We've got just so

1604
01:31:41,880 --> 01:31:43,960
Speaker 1: nobody should be surprised, you know today, Like I mean

1605
01:31:44,000 --> 01:31:46,760
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, yes, NBS was an unknown commodity, was

1606
01:31:46,800 --> 01:31:49,240
Speaker 1: news to the seeing people were still the verdict wasn't out.

1607
01:31:49,320 --> 01:31:51,920
Speaker 1: But for the Biden administration, they have now the benefit

1608
01:31:51,960 --> 01:31:55,280
Speaker 1: of hindsight, seven years of witnessing blunder after blunder by

1609
01:31:55,360 --> 01:31:57,880
Speaker 1: NBS and also knowing what exactly works with him and

1610
01:31:58,000 --> 01:32:01,040
Speaker 1: what doesn't work. He all talk about Trump administration because

1611
01:32:01,040 --> 01:32:03,559
Speaker 1: that's such an important point and how he was able

1612
01:32:03,600 --> 01:32:06,120
Speaker 1: to manage your relationship. So there are multiple examples and

1613
01:32:06,240 --> 01:32:09,479
Speaker 1: presidents and facts to show that NBS only understands language

1614
01:32:09,479 --> 01:32:13,800
Speaker 1: of power appeasement, including fist bumps and presential visit would

1615
01:32:14,040 --> 01:32:17,720
Speaker 1: only embolden him and verify his delusional sense of superiority

1616
01:32:18,040 --> 01:32:20,639
Speaker 1: in this relation. Has shown to have done that. Yeah, absolutely,

1617
01:32:21,120 --> 01:32:23,880
Speaker 1: but like a bit of different context. But like in

1618
01:32:24,000 --> 01:32:27,479
Speaker 1: April twenty twenty, NBS basically raised an oil price war

1619
01:32:28,080 --> 01:32:31,400
Speaker 1: that hurt American shale gas producers and you can recall

1620
01:32:31,400 --> 01:32:34,920
Speaker 1: a future contracts when even like sub zero. And what

1621
01:32:35,960 --> 01:32:39,000
Speaker 1: the sitting US president at that time did is he

1622
01:32:39,160 --> 01:32:42,200
Speaker 1: decided to act as the senior partner in this relationship

1623
01:32:42,720 --> 01:32:45,880
Speaker 1: and exercise US leverage so he didn't need to take

1624
01:32:45,920 --> 01:32:47,760
Speaker 1: a plant to Jed done fist bump and BS. He

1625
01:32:47,800 --> 01:32:50,439
Speaker 1: picked up the phone and literally said I'm not going

1626
01:32:50,560 --> 01:32:53,400
Speaker 1: to be able to stop Congress from going after you,

1627
01:32:53,520 --> 01:32:57,280
Speaker 1: and he threatened cutting you know, arm support. What did

1628
01:32:57,320 --> 01:32:59,360
Speaker 1: they say they were going to pull the US military out? Yes,

1629
01:32:59,439 --> 01:33:02,720
Speaker 1: nobody said, simple listen, you're hurting the US with your

1630
01:33:02,760 --> 01:33:06,240
Speaker 1: oil policy. Same exactly what's happening today. I'm going to

1631
01:33:06,320 --> 01:33:08,880
Speaker 1: cut military support. And you know what happened, And I

1632
01:33:09,000 --> 01:33:11,640
Speaker 1: remember that because it was an official Saudi you know,

1633
01:33:11,680 --> 01:33:15,479
Speaker 1: press release right after that call, and it says, Saudi Arabia,

1634
01:33:15,880 --> 01:33:19,080
Speaker 1: in response to the request of the US President, the

1635
01:33:19,160 --> 01:33:23,160
Speaker 1: President and our colleagues and our friends in Congress, we

1636
01:33:23,280 --> 01:33:25,760
Speaker 1: are calling for an Open Plus meeting. They did that,

1637
01:33:26,040 --> 01:33:30,719
Speaker 1: and Opicplus made the biggest swing in its production outputs

1638
01:33:30,760 --> 01:33:34,400
Speaker 1: in history. They cut production by ten barrels and to help,

1639
01:33:34,479 --> 01:33:38,320
Speaker 1: you know, lift services. So totally complied with what President Trump,

1640
01:33:38,760 --> 01:33:40,640
Speaker 1: I guess asked is maybe a light word what he

1641
01:33:40,960 --> 01:33:43,400
Speaker 1: mandated that they do. The reporting on that phone call

1642
01:33:43,479 --> 01:33:46,200
Speaker 1: was funny. It says that it was an ultimatum and

1643
01:33:46,320 --> 01:33:48,160
Speaker 1: MBS was so embarrassed that you had to kick out

1644
01:33:48,200 --> 01:33:52,160
Speaker 1: his advisors from the room because the city US president

1645
01:33:52,400 --> 01:33:54,240
Speaker 1: was tough and exercised his leverage. And that's how you

1646
01:33:54,280 --> 01:33:56,759
Speaker 1: deal with the bully. And you know, honestly credited President

1647
01:33:56,800 --> 01:33:59,840
Speaker 1: Trump for doing that, not someone that I'm often giving

1648
01:34:00,200 --> 01:34:01,800
Speaker 1: it too. But I think he had the idea right

1649
01:34:01,840 --> 01:34:03,960
Speaker 1: in the nature of how you're going to execute that relationship.

1650
01:34:04,120 --> 01:34:06,320
Speaker 1: I'm not in a place of giving political endorsements. But

1651
01:34:06,400 --> 01:34:08,320
Speaker 1: when it comes to dealing with NBS, I think that's

1652
01:34:08,360 --> 01:34:11,200
Speaker 1: the way to go forward the US. It's high time

1653
01:34:11,240 --> 01:34:15,000
Speaker 1: that the Biden administration start acting like the senior partner

1654
01:34:15,040 --> 01:34:20,799
Speaker 1: in this relationship, reasserts US leverage and basically make demands

1655
01:34:20,840 --> 01:34:23,760
Speaker 1: and ultimatums. It's, you know, like I'm trying to let

1656
01:34:23,840 --> 01:34:27,720
Speaker 1: him simplify it. The Biden administration should not allow itself

1657
01:34:27,960 --> 01:34:31,280
Speaker 1: to figuratively and literally be held over a Saudi oil

1658
01:34:31,400 --> 01:34:35,240
Speaker 1: barrel that is still dependent on US protection. And by

1659
01:34:35,280 --> 01:34:38,720
Speaker 1: the way, US security guarantees include guarantees of oil facilities.

1660
01:34:39,120 --> 01:34:42,760
Speaker 1: There's an example where in twenty nineteen, Ireon attacked a

1661
01:34:42,840 --> 01:34:44,760
Speaker 1: gig which is one of the biggest refineries in the world.

1662
01:34:45,280 --> 01:34:47,519
Speaker 1: And if you can't protect your oil facilities, you're not

1663
01:34:47,640 --> 01:34:49,920
Speaker 1: even going to have oil to ship and produce, and

1664
01:34:49,960 --> 01:34:53,000
Speaker 1: that would hurt your revenues. What did they do? Like

1665
01:34:53,160 --> 01:34:56,320
Speaker 1: second day and Bs's brother who's now the Administry of Defense,

1666
01:34:56,400 --> 01:35:00,400
Speaker 1: flew to DC and asked for more patriot batteries. The way,

1667
01:35:00,720 --> 01:35:04,120
Speaker 1: there's an interesting you know story here. President Trump didn't

1668
01:35:04,120 --> 01:35:06,040
Speaker 1: care about human rights. There was no retrick. He didn't

1669
01:35:06,040 --> 01:35:08,040
Speaker 1: even pretend to care about human rights. Yeah, but with

1670
01:35:08,240 --> 01:35:12,519
Speaker 1: that request for more additional military support, he included the

1671
01:35:12,640 --> 01:35:16,200
Speaker 1: release of a Saudi US citizen in Saudi Arabia, and

1672
01:35:16,280 --> 01:35:20,240
Speaker 1: he was released as part of that transaction. Wow. So

1673
01:35:20,400 --> 01:35:22,519
Speaker 1: not only getting the old production you wanted, but getting

1674
01:35:23,120 --> 01:35:26,280
Speaker 1: a more favorable disposition with regards to human rights issues

1675
01:35:26,320 --> 01:35:29,760
Speaker 1: by flexing that muscle that we have that you know,

1676
01:35:29,840 --> 01:35:31,920
Speaker 1: by the way, this is a unique situation in which

1677
01:35:31,960 --> 01:35:35,080
Speaker 1: this country depends on US for billions and weapons support

1678
01:35:35,160 --> 01:35:37,360
Speaker 1: to defend themselves against the Huthis and the Iranians and

1679
01:35:37,360 --> 01:35:38,920
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. That's a kind of leverage

1680
01:35:38,960 --> 01:35:40,439
Speaker 1: that means you don't have to go to war. We

1681
01:35:40,520 --> 01:35:44,200
Speaker 1: don't have to invade Iraq or invade Afghanistan to change

1682
01:35:44,240 --> 01:35:46,920
Speaker 1: their policy. You just need to withdraw what you're giving them. Yeah.

1683
01:35:46,960 --> 01:35:50,080
Speaker 1: And it's pretty interesting because with MBS, he is simultaneously

1684
01:35:50,160 --> 01:35:53,000
Speaker 1: the perpetrator of egregious human rights violations and also the

1685
01:35:53,120 --> 01:35:56,880
Speaker 1: orchestrator of disastrous foreign policy that has hurt in the

1686
01:35:56,960 --> 01:35:59,439
Speaker 1: US interest regionally. And what we just saw with the

1687
01:35:59,479 --> 01:36:01,759
Speaker 1: OPI plus, so to expect him all of a sudden

1688
01:36:02,000 --> 01:36:06,560
Speaker 1: to mature on foreign policy, but remain the authoritarian he

1689
01:36:06,800 --> 01:36:09,960
Speaker 1: is on egregious human much. It is just like wishful

1690
01:36:10,040 --> 01:36:12,880
Speaker 1: naivitated to be honest, and that's why it's so intertwined,

1691
01:36:13,280 --> 01:36:17,080
Speaker 1: and you need to combine realism with defending values at

1692
01:36:17,080 --> 01:36:19,200
Speaker 1: the same time. So this seems like a good place

1693
01:36:19,240 --> 01:36:23,760
Speaker 1: to close on. What's your sense of how the administration

1694
01:36:24,200 --> 01:36:26,320
Speaker 1: is going to respond to this and how rational will

1695
01:36:26,320 --> 01:36:28,920
Speaker 1: be because we are seeing a fairly impresiated response to

1696
01:36:28,960 --> 01:36:31,000
Speaker 1: the part of Congress. But my impression of the course

1697
01:36:31,000 --> 01:36:32,880
Speaker 1: of my reporting is that there's a split between the

1698
01:36:32,960 --> 01:36:37,360
Speaker 1: Congress and the White House. These oil production cuts having

1699
01:36:37,400 --> 01:36:39,040
Speaker 1: the effect that they do on economies. You know, we're

1700
01:36:39,080 --> 01:36:41,040
Speaker 1: foss field economy that depends on it for all sorts

1701
01:36:41,040 --> 01:36:44,960
Speaker 1: of things is much more complicated than just the gas prices.

1702
01:36:45,360 --> 01:36:47,439
Speaker 1: I think that frontline members in Congress that are facing

1703
01:36:47,439 --> 01:36:48,800
Speaker 1: a re election are very worried about it and have

1704
01:36:48,880 --> 01:36:50,800
Speaker 1: the sense that the White House doesn't have that same

1705
01:36:51,640 --> 01:36:53,640
Speaker 1: sense of urgency that they think is necessary. So how

1706
01:36:53,640 --> 01:36:55,240
Speaker 1: do you think the White House and National security counts

1707
01:36:55,240 --> 01:36:57,320
Speaker 1: are going to respond to all this? Oh, I mean,

1708
01:36:57,479 --> 01:37:00,600
Speaker 1: so far, the way they've acted doesn't give me a

1709
01:37:00,640 --> 01:37:03,200
Speaker 1: lot of optimism. I'm afraid, you know, like there are

1710
01:37:03,280 --> 01:37:06,200
Speaker 1: promising consequences. But this is the same ADMIN that during

1711
01:37:06,240 --> 01:37:09,320
Speaker 1: the campaign trail promise to keep sat Arabia or NBS

1712
01:37:09,360 --> 01:37:11,760
Speaker 1: sorry a praya, and then it ended up with a

1713
01:37:11,800 --> 01:37:14,920
Speaker 1: fist bump. So I'm just afraid that the kind of

1714
01:37:15,040 --> 01:37:17,920
Speaker 1: rage right now and the promises of consequences are going

1715
01:37:17,960 --> 01:37:20,000
Speaker 1: to probably end up with a rest slap instead of

1716
01:37:20,040 --> 01:37:23,200
Speaker 1: a fist bump. But it's fine for like Congress and

1717
01:37:23,240 --> 01:37:25,920
Speaker 1: the adamin to have different views, and maybe that is

1718
01:37:25,960 --> 01:37:28,920
Speaker 1: a dynamic that should be exploited. Create a good bad

1719
01:37:28,960 --> 01:37:31,840
Speaker 1: cop scenario. Have Congress go at MBS and then pick

1720
01:37:31,920 --> 01:37:33,720
Speaker 1: up the phone and tell him listen, I'm not going

1721
01:37:33,760 --> 01:37:35,679
Speaker 1: to be able to veto anything that comes out of Congress.

1722
01:37:35,760 --> 01:37:37,200
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be able to protect you from

1723
01:37:37,240 --> 01:37:39,760
Speaker 1: Congress unless you give me something to work with, and

1724
01:37:39,880 --> 01:37:44,360
Speaker 1: that would include concessions on foreign policy and oil policy,

1725
01:37:44,439 --> 01:37:49,400
Speaker 1: but also resolving human rights cases, starting with American citizens

1726
01:37:49,439 --> 01:37:51,639
Speaker 1: that up until you know two weeks ago, are being tortured,

1727
01:37:51,640 --> 01:37:56,000
Speaker 1: done sentenced to draconian sentences in court for tweeting tweets

1728
01:37:56,080 --> 01:38:00,920
Speaker 1: on US soil, non violent tweet, just satire so and

1729
01:38:01,640 --> 01:38:03,600
Speaker 1: you know it can't be stressed enough. We have a

1730
01:38:03,680 --> 01:38:08,080
Speaker 1: proof of concept for how to get MBS to you know,

1731
01:38:08,200 --> 01:38:09,920
Speaker 1: comply with these things in the form of you know

1732
01:38:09,960 --> 01:38:12,680
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration successfully did. So it's not like

1733
01:38:12,760 --> 01:38:14,960
Speaker 1: we're talking about this in the abstract. No, No, there

1734
01:38:15,000 --> 01:38:16,920
Speaker 1: are facts, there are precedents. Just look at what works.

1735
01:38:16,960 --> 01:38:18,960
Speaker 1: It doesn't work at peacement doesn't work. It's time to

1736
01:38:19,160 --> 01:38:21,960
Speaker 1: change the policy. You need to bully in vs into

1737
01:38:21,960 --> 01:38:25,160
Speaker 1: concessions because that's the only language that bullies understand. Good

1738
01:38:25,200 --> 01:38:30,080
Speaker 1: to talk to you, Colley. Likewise, hither My name is

1739
01:38:30,160 --> 01:38:32,719
Speaker 1: James Lee. Welcome to another segment of fifty one forty

1740
01:38:32,800 --> 01:38:35,400
Speaker 1: nine on Breaking Points, where we dive into different topics

1741
01:38:35,439 --> 01:38:38,559
Speaker 1: at the intersection of business, politics and society. And today

1742
01:38:38,600 --> 01:38:42,040
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about central bank digital currencies aka

1743
01:38:42,520 --> 01:38:45,439
Speaker 1: a digital dollar, specifically one that could be issued by

1744
01:38:45,479 --> 01:38:49,920
Speaker 1: the US government. Is the FED working on a digital dollar?

1745
01:38:50,560 --> 01:38:56,040
Speaker 1: We are actually evaluating that most major countries are now

1746
01:38:56,160 --> 01:38:59,720
Speaker 1: looking at the possibility of having a digital currency and

1747
01:38:59,760 --> 01:39:03,160
Speaker 1: really asking the question, in our very modern, advanced economy

1748
01:39:03,240 --> 01:39:07,639
Speaker 1: with a fast, efficient, full blown payment system, would adding

1749
01:39:08,520 --> 01:39:10,960
Speaker 1: a digital currency, a form of digital currency, would it

1750
01:39:11,000 --> 01:39:14,280
Speaker 1: actually benefit the public that we serve that's the question

1751
01:39:14,360 --> 01:39:16,679
Speaker 1: that we're asking. We're working very hard on that. Chairman

1752
01:39:16,760 --> 01:39:18,800
Speaker 1: of the FED, Jerome pal says, the issuance of a

1753
01:39:18,920 --> 01:39:21,400
Speaker 1: central bank digital currency hinges on whether or not it

1754
01:39:21,439 --> 01:39:24,759
Speaker 1: would benefit the public. So let's look into that today,

1755
01:39:24,840 --> 01:39:28,400
Speaker 1: but also let's look into other reasons why the US government,

1756
01:39:28,439 --> 01:39:32,200
Speaker 1: along with many other governments, is seriously exploring the creation

1757
01:39:32,320 --> 01:39:36,040
Speaker 1: and implementation of a central bank digital currency abbreviated CBDC.

1758
01:39:36,640 --> 01:39:38,760
Speaker 1: Now this is just recent news as of last week

1759
01:39:38,800 --> 01:39:42,799
Speaker 1: October twelfth, twenty twenty two, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen,

1760
01:39:42,880 --> 01:39:46,080
Speaker 1: in a conversation at the International Monetary Funds Annual Meeting,

1761
01:39:46,240 --> 01:39:49,679
Speaker 1: stress the need for more central bank digital currency work,

1762
01:39:50,080 --> 01:39:53,960
Speaker 1: citing that a CBDC has many advantages and the potential

1763
01:39:54,040 --> 01:39:57,200
Speaker 1: to solve numerous problems. We'll talk about some of those

1764
01:39:57,439 --> 01:40:00,000
Speaker 1: tout advantages in a minute here, but first let's define

1765
01:40:00,000 --> 01:40:05,040
Speaker 1: find what a CBDC is exactly. A central bank digital

1766
01:40:05,120 --> 01:40:09,040
Speaker 1: currency or CBDC is a digital form of a country's

1767
01:40:09,120 --> 01:40:13,320
Speaker 1: currency operated by the central bank. Similar to cash. The

1768
01:40:13,439 --> 01:40:16,599
Speaker 1: central bank would issue its digital currency to allow people

1769
01:40:16,720 --> 01:40:21,479
Speaker 1: to make everyday transactions. Many governments, including the UK, Sweden,

1770
01:40:21,840 --> 01:40:25,800
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, Australia, and the US are all exploring ways

1771
01:40:25,960 --> 01:40:29,720
Speaker 1: digital currency could work. So CBDCs are digital forms of

1772
01:40:29,880 --> 01:40:33,240
Speaker 1: sovereign currencies issued by the central bank, and the concept

1773
01:40:33,320 --> 01:40:36,960
Speaker 1: has been gaining steam all over the world. According to

1774
01:40:37,240 --> 01:40:40,519
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Council, one hundred and nine countries representing about

1775
01:40:40,720 --> 01:40:43,679
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of the world's GDP are currently exploring

1776
01:40:43,720 --> 01:40:47,919
Speaker 1: a CBDC, with some countries in the advanced stages of development,

1777
01:40:48,000 --> 01:40:51,400
Speaker 1: with almost a quarter of those countries having either launched

1778
01:40:51,760 --> 01:40:55,519
Speaker 1: or currently in the pilot phase of development. So this

1779
01:40:55,600 --> 01:40:57,200
Speaker 1: is a big deal, and I think it might be

1780
01:40:57,360 --> 01:41:00,639
Speaker 1: wise of us to explore a potential or perhaps even

1781
01:41:00,760 --> 01:41:04,720
Speaker 1: probable future where most, if not all, transactions are facilitated

1782
01:41:04,840 --> 01:41:14,519
Speaker 1: via a central bank digital currency. Quong Dan just paid

1783
01:41:14,560 --> 01:41:18,160
Speaker 1: with a new type of money at this pharmacy. Oh all,

1784
01:41:18,360 --> 01:41:25,360
Speaker 1: that's because China's paper cash is going digital. The digital

1785
01:41:25,439 --> 01:41:27,519
Speaker 1: you want is meant to be faster than using credit

1786
01:41:27,640 --> 01:41:31,599
Speaker 1: or debit cards on digital wallets like Apple Pay. Plus.

1787
01:41:31,720 --> 01:41:35,160
Speaker 1: There are other incentives like zero transaction fees for merchants,

1788
01:41:35,280 --> 01:41:38,040
Speaker 1: and one day it'll even work offline. So the one

1789
01:41:38,080 --> 01:41:39,639
Speaker 1: thing I need to stress for those of you who

1790
01:41:40,000 --> 01:41:42,200
Speaker 1: may not be super well versed in this topic. Is

1791
01:41:42,280 --> 01:41:46,160
Speaker 1: that proponents of a central bank digital currency, like the

1792
01:41:46,320 --> 01:41:49,640
Speaker 1: Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund the IMF, who

1793
01:41:49,760 --> 01:41:53,280
Speaker 1: recently touted cbdc's as quote the future of money, will

1794
01:41:53,360 --> 01:41:56,960
Speaker 1: often emphasize benefits like the potential to offer consumers a

1795
01:41:57,080 --> 01:42:00,040
Speaker 1: form of digital currency with more resilience, more sale, a

1796
01:42:00,400 --> 01:42:03,720
Speaker 1: greater availability, and lower costs compared to other forms of

1797
01:42:03,800 --> 01:42:08,280
Speaker 1: digital currencies like bitcoin or ethereum, but conveniently will at

1798
01:42:08,320 --> 01:42:11,559
Speaker 1: the same time deemphasize the inherent dangers of a CBDC,

1799
01:42:11,760 --> 01:42:14,800
Speaker 1: like the fact that a government issued digital dollar would

1800
01:42:14,840 --> 01:42:18,400
Speaker 1: come with significant trade offs in regards to personal privacy

1801
01:42:18,479 --> 01:42:21,000
Speaker 1: and trust. The digital you want is meant to be

1802
01:42:21,120 --> 01:42:24,040
Speaker 1: faster than using credit or debit cards on digital wallets

1803
01:42:24,120 --> 01:42:27,000
Speaker 1: like Apple Pay. The one major difference is that the

1804
01:42:27,080 --> 01:42:29,840
Speaker 1: digital you want is one hundred percent trackable by China

1805
01:42:29,960 --> 01:42:33,439
Speaker 1: Central Bank. The central bank will know whose pain, how

1806
01:42:33,520 --> 01:42:36,320
Speaker 1: much they're pain, when they're paying, where they're paying, and

1807
01:42:36,520 --> 01:42:40,080
Speaker 1: then to analyze the patterns of payment. It means that

1808
01:42:40,200 --> 01:42:42,439
Speaker 1: the Chinese government could set up a whole lot of

1809
01:42:42,560 --> 01:42:47,120
Speaker 1: things to have your currency maybe valid or invalid based

1810
01:42:47,160 --> 01:42:50,800
Speaker 1: on its own priorities. This is almost like handing over

1811
01:42:50,880 --> 01:42:54,120
Speaker 1: the keys to your business or to your finance department

1812
01:42:54,200 --> 01:42:57,400
Speaker 1: in some ways, because you really can't control what at

1813
01:42:57,400 --> 01:42:59,920
Speaker 1: the end of the day may happen with the fund

1814
01:43:00,200 --> 01:43:03,519
Speaker 1: that you're holding. Now, I'm not a crypto bro anything

1815
01:43:03,600 --> 01:43:05,640
Speaker 1: like that, so by no means am I here to

1816
01:43:05,760 --> 01:43:08,519
Speaker 1: show for Bitcoin ethereum or any other crypto. And I'm

1817
01:43:08,560 --> 01:43:13,000
Speaker 1: also not under any false pretense that we aren't already

1818
01:43:13,080 --> 01:43:16,360
Speaker 1: being monitored to some degree through other means like smartphones,

1819
01:43:16,400 --> 01:43:21,360
Speaker 1: credit cards, and CCTV cameras by centralized government agencies or

1820
01:43:21,400 --> 01:43:24,599
Speaker 1: corporate entities. But I also do think that it's important

1821
01:43:24,640 --> 01:43:29,439
Speaker 1: to highlight that unlike private cryptocurrencies, which are decentralized by design,

1822
01:43:29,880 --> 01:43:33,800
Speaker 1: a CBDC, like the digital un is very centralized and

1823
01:43:33,960 --> 01:43:37,760
Speaker 1: will by design handover more power to just a few

1824
01:43:37,800 --> 01:43:41,439
Speaker 1: individuals or institutions by giving them the ability to potentially

1825
01:43:41,479 --> 01:43:45,080
Speaker 1: control and socially engineered behavior at a societal level. I

1826
01:43:45,120 --> 01:43:47,719
Speaker 1: don't know about you, but the dystopian social credit score

1827
01:43:47,760 --> 01:43:50,479
Speaker 1: episode from The Black Mirror a few years back comes

1828
01:43:50,520 --> 01:43:53,320
Speaker 1: to mind from me. But of course, the examples we've

1829
01:43:53,360 --> 01:43:57,000
Speaker 1: covered today have been mostly from China and China has

1830
01:43:57,040 --> 01:44:00,720
Speaker 1: a very different culture, both politically and social compared to

1831
01:44:00,760 --> 01:44:04,720
Speaker 1: the US, so this type of control couldn't possibly be

1832
01:44:04,880 --> 01:44:08,760
Speaker 1: implemented in the US, could it. This is reporting from

1833
01:44:08,800 --> 01:44:11,320
Speaker 1: the Hill. In a twenty twenty one question and answer

1834
01:44:11,360 --> 01:44:14,720
Speaker 1: session about the development of a digital dollar, David Anolfado,

1835
01:44:14,880 --> 01:44:17,439
Speaker 1: a senior vice president and economist in the Saint Louis

1836
01:44:17,479 --> 01:44:20,599
Speaker 1: fed's Research Division, was asked whether the FED could quote

1837
01:44:20,640 --> 01:44:24,200
Speaker 1: assure us the public that these digital currencies won't ever

1838
01:44:24,320 --> 01:44:26,880
Speaker 1: be used to tell us when, how or where our

1839
01:44:26,960 --> 01:44:30,559
Speaker 1: money can be spent. He responded, quote, in life, one

1840
01:44:30,720 --> 01:44:34,640
Speaker 1: can't give absolute assurances of anything, before suggesting that the

1841
01:44:34,800 --> 01:44:37,839
Speaker 1: best we can hope for is for Congress to respond

1842
01:44:37,920 --> 01:44:44,080
Speaker 1: to the electorates concerns about privacy. Not exactly reassuring if

1843
01:44:44,160 --> 01:44:46,360
Speaker 1: only we voted harder, everything would be all good kind

1844
01:44:46,400 --> 01:44:48,960
Speaker 1: of answer, And I think this is even more alarming.

1845
01:44:49,120 --> 01:44:52,519
Speaker 1: Just last week October eighteenth, twenty twenty two, Roll Call

1846
01:44:52,640 --> 01:44:55,639
Speaker 1: reported that the FED could potentially issue a digital dollar

1847
01:44:55,760 --> 01:45:01,320
Speaker 1: without congressional legislation. Aaron Klein, a Brookings Incidentitution Senior fellow

1848
01:45:01,439 --> 01:45:04,560
Speaker 1: of economic studies, warned that at one point Chairman of

1849
01:45:04,560 --> 01:45:07,400
Speaker 1: the FED jerom Pala said legislation was needed. He then

1850
01:45:07,520 --> 01:45:10,120
Speaker 1: changes tune to say that the FED wouldn't act first

1851
01:45:10,200 --> 01:45:14,639
Speaker 1: without consulting with Congress and having congressional buy in very different.

1852
01:45:15,360 --> 01:45:19,160
Speaker 1: So it's entirely possible that our surveillance state could expand

1853
01:45:19,280 --> 01:45:23,559
Speaker 1: without any democratic intervention. For early digital Yu Want winners

1854
01:45:23,640 --> 01:45:26,320
Speaker 1: like Kuang, he says the trial went smoothly, and if

1855
01:45:26,360 --> 01:45:30,120
Speaker 1: the currency does go mainstream, he expects the surveillance aspect

1856
01:45:30,160 --> 01:45:46,200
Speaker 1: will matter less to him. The Baiku Teango comp There's

1857
01:45:46,200 --> 01:45:48,320
Speaker 1: an old Swinsu code from the Art of War that

1858
01:45:48,479 --> 01:45:52,200
Speaker 1: goes something like the greatest victory is that which requires

1859
01:45:52,439 --> 01:45:55,360
Speaker 1: no battle. You see what I'm getting at the convenience factor.

1860
01:45:55,439 --> 01:45:59,519
Speaker 1: People don't want to have their privacy invaded, but by

1861
01:45:59,600 --> 01:46:04,360
Speaker 1: creating just the right conditions skyrocketing inflation and economic recession,

1862
01:46:04,560 --> 01:46:09,080
Speaker 1: suppression of labor rights, and widening wealth inequality, people could

1863
01:46:09,160 --> 01:46:13,000
Speaker 1: easily be persuaded to opt into something like a digital currency,

1864
01:46:13,800 --> 01:46:17,960
Speaker 1: voluntarily giving up their financial data to the government just

1865
01:46:18,080 --> 01:46:21,280
Speaker 1: like that. Right. With many people living paycheck to paycheck,

1866
01:46:21,520 --> 01:46:24,439
Speaker 1: just trying to make ends meet, sometimes work in multiple jobs,

1867
01:46:24,920 --> 01:46:28,639
Speaker 1: any extra added bit of convenience in any aspect of life.

1868
01:46:28,720 --> 01:46:32,439
Speaker 1: Sounds like a much needed positive relief. So naturally we

1869
01:46:32,600 --> 01:46:35,559
Speaker 1: may willingly just give up control, give up our privacy,

1870
01:46:35,640 --> 01:46:38,400
Speaker 1: because it might be the only logical choice that we have.

1871
01:46:39,479 --> 01:46:42,560
Speaker 1: So central bank has belatedly admit, oh oh, now that

1872
01:46:42,640 --> 01:46:46,240
Speaker 1: you've mentioned that, yes, banks create the money supply, so

1873
01:46:46,680 --> 01:46:49,800
Speaker 1: let's abolish that now. And also, by the way, let's

1874
01:46:49,840 --> 01:46:53,839
Speaker 1: abolish cash. So what should we do well, introduce digital

1875
01:46:53,920 --> 01:46:58,320
Speaker 1: cybercurrency that central banks issue and control and thereby gained

1876
01:46:58,400 --> 01:47:02,040
Speaker 1: total control over all economic transactions, decisions, and the whole lot.

1877
01:47:02,080 --> 01:47:05,479
Speaker 1: You've just heard from the CEO of the GDI. So

1878
01:47:05,920 --> 01:47:08,439
Speaker 1: the greatest concentration of central banking power in history is

1879
01:47:08,479 --> 01:47:11,920
Speaker 1: really the bid they're aiming at. That's the central bank's goal.

1880
01:47:12,680 --> 01:47:17,240
Speaker 1: And of course digital accounts of dissenters and regime critics

1881
01:47:17,280 --> 01:47:20,960
Speaker 1: could be switched off, be very difficult to even purchase necessities.

1882
01:47:21,600 --> 01:47:24,719
Speaker 1: And why is a sudden discussion about universal basic income

1883
01:47:24,760 --> 01:47:29,160
Speaker 1: from all the grassroots in inverted commerce movements and billionaires? Oh,

1884
01:47:29,479 --> 01:47:31,599
Speaker 1: university basic InCom is the bribe for you to accept

1885
01:47:31,600 --> 01:47:34,760
Speaker 1: the microchip. The overarching trend of the twentieth century is

1886
01:47:34,840 --> 01:47:36,800
Speaker 1: concentration of power in the hands of the few. That's

1887
01:47:36,800 --> 01:47:38,120
Speaker 1: what we have to keep in mind. We have to

1888
01:47:38,200 --> 01:47:41,600
Speaker 1: work against this. We don't want to have these unaccountable

1889
01:47:41,600 --> 01:47:45,200
Speaker 1: central planners making decisions. We need decentralization, and the solution

1890
01:47:45,320 --> 01:47:49,720
Speaker 1: therefore is to maintain public money in the hands of

1891
01:47:50,000 --> 01:47:55,000
Speaker 1: local community banks, decentralized decision making, give local people the

1892
01:47:55,160 --> 01:47:58,200
Speaker 1: power and the form of local public banks and local

1893
01:47:58,280 --> 01:48:01,400
Speaker 1: not for profit community banks. Pfessor Richard Warner who wrote

1894
01:48:01,520 --> 01:48:04,120
Speaker 1: a best selling book called The Princes of Yen where

1895
01:48:04,120 --> 01:48:06,320
Speaker 1: he explored the role and power of central banks and

1896
01:48:06,400 --> 01:48:09,479
Speaker 1: how they could be used to change a country's economic, political,

1897
01:48:09,520 --> 01:48:12,600
Speaker 1: and social structures. It was actually recommended to me by

1898
01:48:12,640 --> 01:48:15,040
Speaker 1: a fellow viewer, and it's a fascinating deep dive into

1899
01:48:15,080 --> 01:48:19,040
Speaker 1: the rise and fall of the Japanese economy. Anyway, my warning,

1900
01:48:19,680 --> 01:48:23,880
Speaker 1: a CBDC could never achieve such lofty goals such as

1901
01:48:24,280 --> 01:48:28,920
Speaker 1: inclusion and equity because it necessarily concentrates power and control

1902
01:48:29,000 --> 01:48:32,200
Speaker 1: into the hands of a few. And to Professor Warner's point,

1903
01:48:32,280 --> 01:48:36,919
Speaker 1: the solution isn't necessarily about more or less government regulation,

1904
01:48:37,120 --> 01:48:42,600
Speaker 1: but about creating and enforcing rules and regulations that decentralized

1905
01:48:42,640 --> 01:48:45,599
Speaker 1: power and resources. That is how we foster a society

1906
01:48:45,640 --> 01:48:50,600
Speaker 1: that protects individual liberties while also incentivizing competition and opportunities

1907
01:48:50,880 --> 01:48:54,599
Speaker 1: for everyone. Those are my thoughts about the rapid rise

1908
01:48:54,800 --> 01:48:57,080
Speaker 1: of central bank digital currencies. I hope you found this

1909
01:48:57,280 --> 01:49:00,519
Speaker 1: video to be helpful. If so, I have many others

1910
01:49:00,680 --> 01:49:02,720
Speaker 1: like it on my YouTube channel, so please head on

1911
01:49:02,800 --> 01:49:05,240
Speaker 1: over there and check out and subscribe to my channel

1912
01:49:05,240 --> 01:49:07,840
Speaker 1: fifty one forty nine with James Lee. The link will

1913
01:49:07,840 --> 01:49:10,280
Speaker 1: be in the description below. Thank you so much for

1914
01:49:10,360 --> 01:49:13,000
Speaker 1: tuning into breaking points, and as always, I appreciate your

1915
01:49:13,040 --> 01:49:13,519
Speaker 1: time today