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Speaker 6: ran so much breaking news. The House voted actually to
Speaker 6: impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro my Orchis last night with time
Speaker 6: they got him, They got him. This time, we're going
Speaker 6: to talk about that. We're going to talk about the
Speaker 6: breaking news out of New York's third District where election
Speaker 6: results are.
Speaker 4: New George Santos.
Speaker 7: The new George Santos isn't there. We will go to.
Speaker 6: The up We'll start by going to the Upper Chamber
Speaker 6: where the bill on Ukraine Israel AID is pending could
Speaker 6: go over the House. We're not sure exactly how that's
Speaker 6: going to work out, but we do have some breaking
Speaker 6: updates on that story. We're going to talk about updates
Speaker 6: out of Israel yesterday. We're going to talk about inflation
Speaker 6: as well, and we have a very interesting guess.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 5: So we've been covering the drama in Pakistan a lot
Speaker 5: on this show, as you guys know, the elections were
Speaker 5: held last week and today we're going to be joined
Speaker 5: by the former Chief of Staff to Imran Khan, whose
Speaker 5: party resoundingly won those elections, but the United States and
Speaker 5: cahoots with its generals over there, is busy trying to
Speaker 5: trying to steal it. Shabbaz Gil is the kind of
Speaker 5: chief representative for I Roan Khan's party here in the
Speaker 5: United States. He's here on asylum because he was the
Speaker 5: subjects of some absolutely brutal torture under the current regime.
Speaker 4: We won't get into the.
Speaker 5: Details of that, but we'll get into, you know, where
Speaker 5: this heads from now. Because it is very clear that
Speaker 5: I Ron Khan's party one a mandate to govern. It
Speaker 5: is also equally clear that the military establishment there is
Speaker 5: going to do everything they can to stop him from
Speaker 5: being able to govern and keep him in jail.
Speaker 7: I'm really looking forward to the interview. Yeah, very interesting stuff.
Speaker 6: Let's start in the Senate though, where again it passed
Speaker 6: that Ukraine Israel Aid bill.
Speaker 4: If we get Taiwan.
Speaker 5: It's really funny that we're spending eight billion dollars to
Speaker 5: help facilitate a war with China over Taiwan.
Speaker 7: Well also, and it just.
Speaker 5: Kind of even in my own article on this the
Speaker 5: internestip I put in parentheses, but it's eight billion dollars
Speaker 5: just a meer sum for potentially conflict with China.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean kind of warrants.
Speaker 5: I should have taken those parentheses out. So that's why
Speaker 5: mentioning it here.
Speaker 6: Ryan's editing himself on air. Well, let's go ahead and
Speaker 6: put a one up on the screen. So Mitch McConnell
Speaker 6: just yesterday urged House Speaker Mike Johnson to take up
Speaker 6: that bill because obviously, after passing Senate you have to
Speaker 6: go to the House. But McConnell of course said he
Speaker 6: would not be quote so presumptuous as to tell him
Speaker 6: how to do it. It's Ryan amazing because this means
Speaker 6: that Mike Johnson, who just lost but Democrats actually gained
Speaker 6: a seats, and he loses how many people that he
Speaker 6: can have in his book down to now so he
Speaker 6: can afford to lose two people on every vote, and
Speaker 6: he lost three on the Mayorkas people which passed yesterday.
Speaker 6: We'll get to that in just a moment, but this
Speaker 6: is actually pretty amazing. You have now Mike Johnson, who
Speaker 6: doesn't have the margins to pass this bill because there's
Speaker 6: no border funding attached to it.
Speaker 4: Congressman his own insistence, Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well absolutely, But also the insistence of their voters. The
Speaker 6: Republican voters do not want them to pass a bill.
Speaker 6: And actually that's a problem with Democratic voters to increase,
Speaker 6: which is that not just a to Ukraine but aid
Speaker 6: to Israel feels to a lot of people like this
Speaker 6: bigot has been turned on and it's sort of like
Speaker 6: half the country things that we've sent in polling. The
Speaker 6: numbers specifically are different in every poll obviously, but polling
Speaker 6: broadly funds that people around half the country things we
Speaker 6: spent too much money or sent too much money to
Speaker 6: Ukraine already.
Speaker 7: So Democrats are just plowing through with aid to Ukraine.
Speaker 6: But I think can we even have if we can
Speaker 6: put a two up on the screen here you can
Speaker 6: see this is the quote from Reuters. After months of
Speaker 6: negotiations and political infighting, the lawmakers approved the measure in
Speaker 6: a seventy to twenty nine vote that comfortably exceeded the
Speaker 6: chambers sixty vote threshold for passage and sent the legislation
Speaker 6: onto the House. Twenty two Republicans joined most Democrats to.
Speaker 7: Support the bill.
Speaker 6: Now you're not going to get that level of support
Speaker 6: on the House side. It tore Republicans in the Senate
Speaker 6: side apart. Ryan, it's remarkable the what's the best way
Speaker 6: to put it, the explosion of a lot of these
Speaker 6: tensions that have been simmering under the surface. So, for example,
Speaker 6: some ten Senate Republicans we don't actually even know who,
Speaker 6: because it was a secret vote, voted against McConnell for
Speaker 6: Minority leader last time around. And this exploded those tensions
Speaker 6: to the surface in a way that I think has
Speaker 6: been a threat that McConnell hasn't seen in a very
Speaker 6: very long time.
Speaker 7: If ever, probably.
Speaker 6: The backlash to McConnell and the Senate side was huge,
Speaker 6: not enough to tank.
Speaker 7: The bill, but enough that it's the House.
Speaker 6: Republicans are going to follow along with those Senate Republicans
Speaker 6: that were extremely frustrated by McConnell.
Speaker 4: Ye, And briefly, let's talk about a little bit. What's
Speaker 4: in this bill.
Speaker 5: SO eight put up a three here. SOBS is a
Speaker 5: ninety five billion dollar aid package. Sixty billion dollars of
Speaker 5: it is set aside for the Ukraine War effort, fourteen
Speaker 5: point one billion dollars to Israel, eight billion dollars to Taiwan,
Speaker 5: four hundred million for other stuff. Now within that is
Speaker 5: roughly ten billion dollars in humanitarian aid which is dispersed
Speaker 5: between the West Bank, Gaza, Ukraine also and also Sudan.
Speaker 4: You had some Democrats who.
Speaker 5: Were opposed to the Israel war money but supported the
Speaker 5: Ukraine money.
Speaker 4: So, like Chris van Holland, who Crystal.
Speaker 5: Talked about yesterday, he also cited the aid that was
Speaker 5: that was in there. So this is one of those
Speaker 5: packages where they put lots of things together and that way,
Speaker 5: if a member of Congress opposes, like one of the three,
Speaker 5: they end up voting for it. And that's how you
Speaker 5: can get through things that most people are against. However,
Speaker 5: the Ukraine aid is interesting because if you did put
Speaker 5: it up as a standalone, it would pass. Who was
Speaker 5: one of the House republicans said that just quite simply,
Speaker 5: or said this whole package would pass. Actually if you
Speaker 5: just get it onto the House floor.
Speaker 4: There's much more resistance.
Speaker 5: Among Republicans at this point to that ukraineate war money
Speaker 5: than Democrats.
Speaker 4: It's been quite a kind of a stea change.
Speaker 5: You would not have expected that, say, ten fifteen years ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, and it was a smart move constituent wise,
Speaker 6: actually for Republicans in Washington to say, to demand you know, say, wait, listen,
Speaker 6: we have a majority in the House, and you know
Speaker 6: Democrats don't have all that big of a majority in
Speaker 6: the Senate. But with a majority in the House, we
Speaker 6: should actually be throwing our weight around a little bit.
Speaker 6: And that's where they got the idea, say, if you
Speaker 6: are going to continue funding the Ukrainian military effort humanitarian
Speaker 6: aid to Ukraine, then.
Speaker 7: You're going to attached to it border security.
Speaker 6: And what it meant by that was not you know,
Speaker 6: millions and millions of dollars to customs and border patrol protection.
Speaker 7: It was to actually reform the system.
Speaker 6: And James Langford basically the bipartisan quote unquote deal that
Speaker 6: has been talked about over and over again was brokeer
Speaker 6: basically by James Langford and Mitch McConnell and didn't even
Speaker 6: have support. Those are like the two people in the
Speaker 6: Senate who supported it. Other Senate Republicans in leadership couldn't
Speaker 6: even get behind the deal that these two members worked
Speaker 6: out with Chuck Schumer essentially, so that it's kind of
Speaker 6: like the way the media is covering it. I saw
Speaker 6: you just now as I was reading some of the
Speaker 6: coverage that the far right tanked the border deal, But
Speaker 6: really was the establishment right that tanked the border deal
Speaker 6: by knowingly brokering that was going absolutely nowhere, that was
Speaker 6: going to be done on arrival because it was so
Speaker 6: opposite to what was being demanded by mainstream conservatives, knowing
Speaker 6: that they were going to have to go defend it
Speaker 6: in their district where people are demanding something completely different.
Speaker 7: Ryans.
Speaker 6: So the discharge petition is now what is being talked about,
Speaker 6: which would allow Democrats, if they could get enough votes,
Speaker 6: to circumvent Republican leadership and get the bill to the
Speaker 6: floor for a vote, because when you have a majority
Speaker 6: in the House, even if it's a slim majority, you
Speaker 6: control the votes. And if Mike Johnson doesn't even want
Speaker 6: to bring this bill to a floor for the vote,
Speaker 6: which he doesn't, and it could actually be a problem.
Speaker 6: I'm curious for your take on this with Justice Dems
Speaker 6: squad members who don't want to get behind this either.
Speaker 6: In Dems actually the sort of coalition of the political establishment.
Speaker 7: They need Justice Dems to get a built like.
Speaker 5: This, or they need a handful of Republicans right, because
Speaker 5: if they lose some Democrats on the left, they need
Speaker 5: to pick up some Republicans, so which they could I mean,
Speaker 5: obviously rashieta tale, but alhon Omar like they're not voting for,
Speaker 5: and a lot of decent number of other demos. Well,
Speaker 5: we should start a whipcount to see aren't you know,
Speaker 5: aren't ready to support this fourteen billion dollars for Israel
Speaker 5: while and this is the this is very important context
Speaker 5: that we'll get to late later in the show. While
Speaker 5: Israel is planning an invasion of Rafa, which is an
Speaker 5: enclave of somewhere between one point three one point five
Speaker 5: million hudding and starving people. The population of Rafa before
Speaker 5: the war was something like three thousand, four hundred thousand.
Speaker 5: Now it's quintupled because Israel has over the last four
Speaker 5: months repeatedly told people you have to leave this area
Speaker 5: for your safety, and so they've moved them all down
Speaker 5: to Rafa, and now they're saying that, well, actually we
Speaker 5: have to bomb and invade Rafa as well. The US
Speaker 5: has called the State's Apartment has called it a potential
Speaker 5: disaster if it happens. Even John Kirby said it would
Speaker 5: be a disaster if it happened. But the latest reporting
Speaker 5: is that we're not doing anything.
Speaker 4: To stop it.
Speaker 5: So at the same time you're going to then give
Speaker 5: them fourteen billion dollars, You're going to have a lot of.
Speaker 4: A handful of Democrats on the left.
Speaker 5: We're going to say no, we're not doing that right now,
Speaker 5: which to your point right means you're going to need
Speaker 5: Republicans then to join with Democrats to implement this discharge petition.
Speaker 5: Two and eighteen is the number that I think it's
Speaker 5: never been done successfully. There have been threats of a
Speaker 5: discharge petition in the past, but I don't think there's
Speaker 5: ever been when it's actually been implemented.
Speaker 4: If the House of Representatives.
Speaker 5: Ever does successfully do a discharge petition, it will be
Speaker 5: two fund wars shot the exception on the Republican side
Speaker 5: that proves the rule actually is sort of not even
Speaker 5: Republican anymore.
Speaker 4: Mitt Romney, we can.
Speaker 5: Play his his assessment of the vote this week.
Speaker 8: The vote we will soon take to provide military weapons
Speaker 8: for Ukraine is the most important vote we will ever
Speaker 8: take as United States senators.
Speaker 7: Oh, it just makes me gag to listen to that.
Speaker 7: It's unbelievably stupid.
Speaker 5: It's it's a really instructive window into how he sees it. Right,
Speaker 5: it's true wild like that he sees this as the
Speaker 5: there's something about this war in Ukraine that the mitt
Speaker 5: Romneys of the world have decided represents a kind.
Speaker 7: Of it's the Cold War.
Speaker 4: To Chris van Holland called it a hinge moment in history.
Speaker 5: Yes, it's very These are not stupid people, but it's
Speaker 5: very hard to understand what on earth they mean by
Speaker 5: this as a hinge point.
Speaker 6: And Mitch McConnell speaks in the sort of lofty rhetoric
Speaker 6: about Ukraine as well, And obviously he's been the engine
Speaker 6: for so much Republican support towards Ukrain thus far. And
Speaker 6: this is a quote when they were talking about the
Speaker 6: vote a couple of days back, he said to lament
Speaker 6: the commitment that has underpinned the longest draft of great
Speaker 6: power conflict in human history. This is idle work for
Speaker 6: idle minds, and it has no place in the United
Speaker 6: States Senate and this chamber. We must face the world
Speaker 6: as it is. We must reject the dimmest and most
Speaker 6: short sighted view of our obligations and grapple instead with
Speaker 6: actual problems.
Speaker 7: This is really his quote as they come in the
Speaker 7: harsh light of day and today The questions facing.
Speaker 6: This body are quite simple. Will we give those who
Speaker 6: wish us more harm or harm more reason to question
Speaker 6: our resolve? Or will we recommit to exercising American strength.
Speaker 6: Will we give those who crave our leadership more reason
Speaker 6: to wonder if it's in decline? Or will we invest
Speaker 6: in the credibility that underpins our entire way of life?
Speaker 6: I mean, give me a break, talk about that. And
Speaker 6: this is where a lot of constituents would.
Speaker 5: Say eighteen seventy eight or something and get yeah, and
Speaker 5: Russians under the bed.
Speaker 6: A great yes, exactly, and a great point that za
Speaker 6: Jalani made about Mitch McConnell recent on twitters. This guy
Speaker 6: represents one of the poorest states in the country. And
Speaker 6: this is where if you see rhetoric like this that
Speaker 6: Mitch McConnell gets so excited to express on the Senate floor,
Speaker 6: you wonder why you don't hear him talking like this
Speaker 6: about you know, for example, to a lot of his
Speaker 6: constituents in Kentucky, they say, what about the border? Why
Speaker 6: don't you talk like this about the border? Why don't
Speaker 6: you talk like this about crime? Why don't you talk
Speaker 6: like this about X, Y and Z? They cannot help themselves,
Speaker 6: but wax poetic about Ukraine because in their mind it
Speaker 6: is still like you said, Russians under the bed.
Speaker 5: It is, you know, Mitch McConnell's role in you know,
Speaker 5: because Mitch McConnell also was instrumental in getting through the
Speaker 5: last aid package, yes, which which got through before you know,
Speaker 5: Republicans took over that House of Representatives and he made
Speaker 5: sure that there was enough money that would.
Speaker 4: Get us to this point.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 5: And for a lot of people who were watching, who
Speaker 5: let's say there, I think I actually pretty much everybody
Speaker 5: watching is sympathetic to the Ukrainian side, like the Ukrainians
Speaker 5: were invaded, Yes, and it's horrifying to watch, but realistically,
Speaker 5: the way that this war is going to end is
Speaker 5: through some sort of negotiations. The more money that you
Speaker 5: continue to throw at it, the more weapons you continue
Speaker 5: to throw, it just delays the time when this can
Speaker 5: actually get to a negotiated end.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 5: Vladimir Bun talked in his interview with Tucker Carlson, which
Speaker 5: we're going to get to later, a lot about the
Speaker 5: negotiations that were unfolding a year and a half ago
Speaker 5: in Istanbul, which were scuttled by the West. And what
Speaker 5: does Ukraine have the show for the last year and
Speaker 5: a half of fighting compared to what was potentially on
Speaker 5: the table in Istanbul Just hundreds of thousands of dead
Speaker 5: and more territory loss. So if there was some idea
Speaker 5: that Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer had that with enough money, yes,
Speaker 5: they were going to push all of the Russians back
Speaker 5: to of every inch of Ukrainian territory. I still wouldn't
Speaker 5: want to see that many people die over over territory.
Speaker 4: But okay, at least that's a strategy.
Speaker 7: There's a strategy.
Speaker 4: Least I understand you know what you're doing here.
Speaker 5: But Diego Kotkin, who we've interviewed before, Russian socialist over
Speaker 5: there commentator, the way he put it was, you know,
Speaker 5: it either ends now in a negotiation because Ukraine runs
Speaker 5: out of money, or it ends in two years because
Speaker 5: Ukraine runs out of people.
Speaker 7: Yes, well they've already run.
Speaker 4: They're now drafting people up into their sixties and there's
Speaker 4: so what's what do you do? Like, what's your long
Speaker 4: term plan for two years from now?
Speaker 6: According to Wall Street Journal, reports are actually like pressuring
Speaker 6: people into conscription. They're conscription people in ways that seem
Speaker 6: to be illegal.
Speaker 5: They're trying to find people overseas and get them to
Speaker 5: come back.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so yeah, no planet.
Speaker 6: Senator around Paul, one of the voices in the Senate
Speaker 6: that has always been a staunch opponent of Mitch McConnell
Speaker 6: and the sort of war hungry political establishment. Here's what
Speaker 6: he had to say. I believe this is a clip
Speaker 6: from yesterday.
Speaker 9: Support what he's doing here, and I'm very outspoken that
Speaker 9: he's made a mistake. He's siding with Schumer and Biden.
Speaker 9: But after the election he said there's a vote aftergot
Speaker 9: which you foot bridge when we can I can say
Speaker 9: right now, he doesn't represent me or conservatives in Kentucky
Speaker 9: or conservatives across the United States. He's doing the bidding
Speaker 9: of Schumer and Biden.
Speaker 10: We're only here because of just one prick, and he
Speaker 10: decides that the rest of all of our schedules in
Speaker 10: our lives and holding up this bill to the getting
Speaker 10: to the House for all of this aid. It's incredibly
Speaker 10: frustrating and there's no work being done. It's just bad
Speaker 10: performance art.
Speaker 6: So that was also Senator John Fetterman reading off his
Speaker 6: phone and calling Mitch McConnell a prick, which, by the way,
Speaker 6: fact check, they're all, well, I.
Speaker 5: Think he reads the questions off his phone. He reads
Speaker 5: the right because he has he still has the auditory
Speaker 5: processing issues, so that his phone translates the questions that
Speaker 5: he hears into words and then and then he responds
Speaker 5: with his.
Speaker 7: Hawkish Colinmage McConnell A prick, was it?
Speaker 4: I think it was called Rand paula prick there?
Speaker 7: That was Rand Paul.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because uh Paul for holding the bill.
Speaker 7: Up, for holding the bill. Okay, that makes.
Speaker 5: Me saying he just wants to be out of town
Speaker 5: and be done with this. Okay, So but Paul's forcing
Speaker 5: them to stick around.
Speaker 6: Okay, thank you for the correction on that. And either way, though,
Speaker 6: the fact.
Speaker 4: Check is about McConnell too.
Speaker 6: Let's they're all, if you're in the United States Senate
Speaker 6: odds are good, then you have some prickishness in you.
Speaker 6: So let's also go now to House Speaker Mike Johnson,
Speaker 6: who was asked about the dispart just discharge petition maneuver
Speaker 6: just yesterday by Chad Pergram.
Speaker 1: Is there any.
Speaker 2: Trans of the discharge petition?
Speaker 11: Is that something you oppose.
Speaker 2: I certainly oppose it, and I hope that it would
Speaker 2: not be considered. How has to work its will on this.
Speaker 2: There's a deliberty process and we're engaged in that, and
Speaker 2: we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 4: But as I said many times, national security.
Speaker 2: Begins with their own work and.
Speaker 4: Across the building will determine that as soon as it has.
Speaker 6: So no discharge position and no vote on the bill
Speaker 6: on the House floor. Meanwhile, let's put a seven up
Speaker 6: on the screen. This is one of my favorite tweets
Speaker 6: in a long time. David from He says Putin's last
Speaker 6: hope is speaker Mike Johnson, which is an echo of
Speaker 6: the Ruthless follows the McConnell hacks over at the Ruthless
Speaker 6: podcast saying that Mike Lee's only the only thing he
Speaker 6: cares about is protecting Hamas when he opposed the spending
Speaker 6: bill last week.
Speaker 7: Just some real incredible takes.
Speaker 5: Here, and the flaw here in the thinking again is
Speaker 5: that if we pass this sixty billion dollars in aid
Speaker 5: and all that those weapons and AMMO gets over to Ukraine,
Speaker 5: that Ukraine is then going to launch a counter offensive
Speaker 5: that is going to turn the war around and be
Speaker 5: the undoing of Putin like That's the only way you
Speaker 5: can understand the logic of a post like that. But
Speaker 5: he does not explain why this sixty billion dollars in
Speaker 5: weapons is going to lead to a successful counter offensive
Speaker 5: that reclaims all this territory when the last sixty plus
Speaker 5: billion dollars didn't do it, when they had hundreds of
Speaker 5: thousands of younger people who were still alive.
Speaker 6: Right right, yes, no, absolutely, I completely agree with that.
Speaker 6: And just as a a sort of glimpse into the
Speaker 6: pressure that Republicans are facing on this, we put eight
Speaker 6: up on the screen.
Speaker 7: This is the.
Speaker 6: Comm strategy for Senate Republicans, and I'm sure we'll see
Speaker 6: some of this from warhawks in general over the next.
Speaker 7: Couple of days.
Speaker 6: McConnell I read that quote earlier, calling people dim and
Speaker 6: short sighted. Are in their perspectives, dim and short sighted
Speaker 6: if they object to the bill. But Senator Tom tell Us,
Speaker 6: very close with Mitch McConnell had just a hell of
Speaker 6: a quote one for the books. He said, our base
Speaker 6: cannot possibly know what's at stake at the level that
Speaker 6: any well briefed US senator should know about what's at stake.
Speaker 7: If putin wins.
Speaker 6: So basically, you were too dumb and ill informed to
Speaker 6: understand why we need to rubber stamp another sixty billion
Speaker 6: dollars to Ukraine, which, by the way, as Ryan pointed out,
Speaker 6: you could probably get it to pass if you attached
Speaker 6: some border security that mainstream conservative Republican voters were happy with.
Speaker 6: But why we should rabber stamp sixty billion dollars to
Speaker 6: Ukraine without any of that.
Speaker 7: You're simply too dumb and ill informed.
Speaker 6: You can't possibly have the knowledge and understanding of the
Speaker 6: United States Senator if.
Speaker 7: You oppose this bill, hell of a way to.
Speaker 5: Sell it, Ryan, Yeah, and from say, let's say, a
Speaker 5: kind of liberal humanitarian global perspective. If you had the
Speaker 5: Ukrainian population, you know, rushing to the front lines, yes,
Speaker 5: and you know, urging the entire world to be you know,
Speaker 5: to support their war effort and armed and to arm
Speaker 5: them so that they could continue this fight, you know,
Speaker 5: that would be one thing the Ukrainian population has made
Speaker 5: very clear with their feet. Yes, now that that does
Speaker 5: that doesn't take anything away from the Ukrainians who are
Speaker 5: fighting bravely at the front lines, many of them forced
Speaker 5: to do so, some of them by choice. But the
Speaker 5: vast majority of people who have had the opportunity to
Speaker 5: flee have gone to other countries because they don't want
Speaker 5: to go to the front lines.
Speaker 4: There are there are so few men left in Ukraine.
Speaker 5: Like in the beginning, lots of families left Ukraine during
Speaker 5: the invasion, but then a lot of the women came back,
Speaker 5: but the men stayed abroad because they did not want
Speaker 5: to fight in this war, which I respect. But if
Speaker 5: they don't want to fight in the war, why are
Speaker 5: we trying to force them to?
Speaker 7: Yeah? Well again, Ryan spoken.
Speaker 4: Like negotiations were on the table. This could be again.
Speaker 6: Spoken like somebody sort of dim and short sighted and
Speaker 6: who couldn't possibly understand you.
Speaker 7: Have you been briefed in the US?
Speaker 5: I guess I guess I haven't gotten the classified briefing
Speaker 5: about how important it is. But it's also something that
Speaker 5: as a as an old man, like I'm in my
Speaker 5: fit mid forties now, and when you get in your
Speaker 5: mid forties, you're like, all right, I'm done with the
Speaker 5: time that I'm a fighting age military male that's over
Speaker 5: in Ukraine. That is not the case, not at all.
Speaker 5: You are dead set in the middle of that bell
Speaker 5: curve when.
Speaker 6: People report walking down the streets and just being conscripted
Speaker 6: by force.
Speaker 5: Yes, I know people who have friends over in Ukraine
Speaker 5: who are have the men older than me getting dragged
Speaker 5: to the front lines. It's like trying to imagine myself
Speaker 5: at the front lines.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and barely get out of bed in the morning.
Speaker 5: Reports I'm going to walk through a frozen trench, dodging shells,
Speaker 5: trying to work a drone with my frozen fingers.
Speaker 7: And there are.
Speaker 6: Reports that based on your sort of wealth and social status,
Speaker 6: you're able to escape conscription and.
Speaker 4: Get the hell out of there.
Speaker 6: So again, yeah, it's just why we're saying that this
Speaker 6: is the most in the words oft Ronney, the most
Speaker 6: important vote that you'll ever take.
Speaker 7: Is idiotic.
Speaker 6: It's idiotic, it's insulting, and they continue to sort of
Speaker 6: just openly insault people who oppose it, which I don't
Speaker 6: think is actually helping their cause. I don't think it's
Speaker 6: going to help them pass anything through the House that
Speaker 6: they so badly want to. The math doesn't look good
Speaker 6: for them at all on this, But you know, they'll
Speaker 6: pull out all of the stops to make sure it
Speaker 6: gets funded.
Speaker 7: So we'll see where it goes.
Speaker 4: So there was We'll move on quickly.
Speaker 5: Somebody had a in Pakistan, one of the winners, one
Speaker 5: of the of the the recent election from Imran Khan's party,
Speaker 5: said that what he was going to do when he
Speaker 5: got into power was take all of the cops who'd
Speaker 5: been raiding unarmed, just polling workers homes and engaging in
Speaker 5: like a crackdown on the civilian population throughout these regions
Speaker 5: of Pakistan, locking up old women. He's like, that's very
Speaker 5: brave of you to, you know, smash down the door
Speaker 5: of an old woman and throw her in prison.
Speaker 4: For trying to vote.
Speaker 5: I'm going to send you instead to fight terrorism of
Speaker 5: in the west of the country. So all the cops
Speaker 5: who are involved in this, guess what you're going over there.
Speaker 5: So if people really, you know, I want to show
Speaker 5: some bravery, there's there are opportunities for them to go
Speaker 5: to the trenches. But if like Malcolm Nance, there you go, right,
Speaker 5: didn't he go there for a little while?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, now he's back. And if he's back, then.
Speaker 7: What are we doing. It's the Malcolm Nance rule?
Speaker 4: There you go.
Speaker 6: So, speaking of the difficult math ahead, last night, the
Speaker 6: House of Representatives voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorcus.
Speaker 6: And it sounds like, you know, I'm almost sort of
Speaker 6: numb to this. It doesn't sound like it's that big
Speaker 6: of a deal. It actually is that big of a deal, Ryan,
Speaker 6: because this is the first time that a cabinet secretary
Speaker 6: had been impeached since the nineteenth century, since actually pretty
Speaker 6: shortly after the Civil War.
Speaker 7: This is not a normal thing.
Speaker 6: Even though it feels like we've got there, how many
Speaker 6: impeachments in the last five plus years or impeachment inquiries, two.
Speaker 7: Impeachments of Trump.
Speaker 6: You had the Biden impeachment inquiry opened, and now this
Speaker 6: impeachment into all one hundred Mayorcus was successful. After last
Speaker 6: week we talked to Representative Greg Kasar about this.
Speaker 7: Al Green was wheeled in from.
Speaker 6: The hospital to take a vote that tanked House Republicans' efforts.
Speaker 6: They thought they had enough votes to impeach Mayorcus last week,
Speaker 6: brought the vote to the floor and did not by
Speaker 6: one vote. The special election in New York, which we'll
Speaker 6: do a full block on later, affects these numbers. Because
Speaker 6: last night the vote was two hundred and fourteen to
Speaker 6: two hundred and.
Speaker 5: Thirteen California Democrat had COVID yes, So that's what doomed
Speaker 5: may Orcus apparently.
Speaker 6: So, and they were constantly counting who would be able
Speaker 6: to vote, like physically would be able to vote or not,
Speaker 6: And that's what you know. That's how they ended up
Speaker 6: bringing this to the floor last night. But they lost
Speaker 6: three Republicans and now in the future, because there's a
Speaker 6: new Democrat replacing George Santos, they can only lose to
Speaker 6: Republicans on these votes. So the math for Republicans going forward,
Speaker 6: just on this may Orcus question, where you had the
Speaker 6: vast majority of their conference willing to go ahead and
Speaker 6: take this vote, they had three people who weren't, and
Speaker 6: that was just enough to tank it last week. One
Speaker 6: person last week voted against it so they could bring
Speaker 6: it to the floor again this week. But they squeaked
Speaker 6: this out with a one vote margin.
Speaker 4: And now it dies.
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, it's going to go to the Senate.
Speaker 4: Nothing's happening in the Senate.
Speaker 7: Yes, there's no way that this is going to make anything.
Speaker 5: Well, they have do they have to have an actual
Speaker 5: trial or can they just know they can just table it?
Speaker 7: Can they We went through this with Trump.
Speaker 4: They had a motion of the table.
Speaker 6: Yes, I think they can just table that failed they
Speaker 6: but so, but either way, they actually still have to
Speaker 6: do that, which is an important enough vote for Senate
Speaker 6: Republicans because there if you're voting on the motion table,
Speaker 6: that's still going to be a question of how you
Speaker 6: vote on that, which for Senate Republicans will be you know,
Speaker 6: again interesting to see where they go and they can
Speaker 6: have a fun question. Yeah, yeah, they and you know
Speaker 6: they will have fun, that's for sure. We can put
Speaker 6: up this next element on the screen. This is from Politico.
Speaker 6: This is what the vote totals looked like. So yeah,
Speaker 6: the first time that this happened, by the way, was
Speaker 6: eighteen seventy six, so first time in nearly one hundred
Speaker 6: and fifty years.
Speaker 7: I don't know where.
Speaker 6: They go from here, Ryan, in terms of future bills
Speaker 6: that could possibly be passed if they have an agenda
Speaker 6: that they're able to get through.
Speaker 7: It looks like basically that's that on arrival.
Speaker 5: That would have been Democrats, right, because then Democrats sweep
Speaker 5: the mid terms of eighteen seventy four.
Speaker 4: In eighteen seventy no, that was eighteen ninety two. Democrats
Speaker 4: did not.
Speaker 5: Democrats were not backing power to eighteen ninety two, eighteen
Speaker 5: seventy four, Republics were still riding high in reconstruction.
Speaker 7: We have Rea Ryan Grim that would have been, that.
Speaker 5: Would have been a Grant Cabinet secretary that they were
Speaker 5: angry at.
Speaker 6: In all seriousness, the you know, I don't think either
Speaker 6: of us we will be differ.
Speaker 5: Somebody tell us in the comments, was it radical Republicans
Speaker 5: upset with some like Grant person not engaged, not like
Speaker 5: pursuing reconstruction hard enough?
Speaker 7: I think it was legitimately, Like, was it criminal? I
Speaker 7: think it was.
Speaker 4: It was one of those. Yeah, it was his big
Speaker 4: corruption scandal.
Speaker 6: One of the reasons people watch Counterpoints is to hear
Speaker 6: us speculate blindly about historical events. So if that's what
Speaker 6: you tune in, and I know it's a lot.
Speaker 4: Of it PD, you can go find it.
Speaker 7: You're welcome, Happy Valentine's Day.
Speaker 6: But in all seriousness, I know we differ obviously on
Speaker 6: the solutions, like Crystal and Sager do. But this is
Speaker 6: no question humanitarian crisis at the border that Congress is
Speaker 6: utterly incapable of landing on a solution to the executive
Speaker 6: branch has been utterly incapable of landing on a solution
Speaker 6: to I think you Remain in Mexico. Under Donald Trump,
Speaker 6: which was an executive branch solution to the problem, was
Speaker 6: hugely powerful. Biden has not implemented Remain in Mexico at
Speaker 6: the levels A court basically forced him to reinforce Remain
Speaker 6: in Mexico, and he's been enforcing at very low levels.
Speaker 6: That said, reports in Mexican media suggest that a deal
Speaker 6: that was struck from the Biden administration with AMLO in
Speaker 6: late December and early January has actually stopped in the
Speaker 6: last month a whole lot.
Speaker 5: Because we accused him of being funded by terrorists and
Speaker 5: give him a narco terrorists.
Speaker 6: And agreed to give him a lot of money basically
Speaker 6: too for border enforcement. So even like Labistia, the train
Speaker 6: that was carrying so many migrants, they've been stopping that.
Speaker 6: They've been stopping people at Tapachula, They've been stopping people
Speaker 6: all over the country in Mexico enforcing.
Speaker 7: Their own immigration laws.
Speaker 6: Because it seems like we actually there's been no transparency
Speaker 6: on what really happened. It seems like though we offered
Speaker 6: to give AMLO a whole lot of money in return
Speaker 6: for this enforcement, which honestly is great news. I know
Speaker 6: it's not great news for Republicans in a political year.
Speaker 6: I think they have plenty to run on the border period.
Speaker 6: I don't give a damn really about whatever they're saying
Speaker 6: in terms of their electoral success. But it's great news
Speaker 6: for people who are not going to be kidnapped and
Speaker 6: raped and sexually abused. And will you know, reconsider whether
Speaker 6: to take those trips if it's not a legitimate asylum claim. Again,
Speaker 6: I know Ryan and I differ on the solution on
Speaker 6: some of this, but you know this is there's no
Speaker 6: question millions of people have flooded over the Biden administration.
Speaker 6: It's understandable why my work is is up for impeachment
Speaker 6: because it's it truly is a crisis.
Speaker 7: In every single way.
Speaker 6: And Ryan, you know, another thought I had yesterday is
Speaker 6: we are debating border security and Ukraine aid and not
Speaker 6: debating aid to all of these countries that get a
Speaker 6: lot of aid from the United States, but are if
Speaker 6: we're concerned about border security because so many people are
Speaker 6: fleeing countries in South and Central America and coming up
Speaker 6: to the United States. If it's a security question by Republicans'
Speaker 6: own logic, you could could could secure the border with
Speaker 6: some humanitarians.
Speaker 5: Have any idea what you could do with ninety five
Speaker 5: billion dollars in Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala, Salvador, like all of
Speaker 5: these countries that are that are, you know, sending migrants
Speaker 5: absolutely up to our border. But no, we're gonna send it.
Speaker 4: We're gonna send it elsewhere anyway.
Speaker 6: It's just amazing that these two conversations are happening completely
Speaker 6: separate arenas, like nobody even.
Speaker 7: Thinks to put them together.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if it's about security because people are flooding to the.
Speaker 5: United States, I'm glad that they don't because I've said before,
Speaker 5: the second they do start putting them together, they'll realize
Speaker 5: that Ukraine's manpower problem can be solved with the US
Speaker 5: migration crisis, and I don't want them to go anywhere
Speaker 5: near that.
Speaker 7: Well, it already happened with Cuban migrants.
Speaker 4: Whatuld they do there?
Speaker 7: They were going to fight for Russia.
Speaker 4: Oh good look, Oh that's right they did.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, and Cuba said that they had nothing to
Speaker 6: do with it and it's been stopped. But yes, the
Speaker 6: less opportunity they have to put two and two together,
Speaker 6: maybe the better for now, and.
Speaker 5: So truce talks have collapsed between that were broken by Cutter,
Speaker 5: between Israel and Hamas as Israel makes clear that even
Speaker 5: in the face of global opposition, it intends to launch
Speaker 5: its invasion of Rafa. This is a city of some
Speaker 5: three hundred thousand people at the start of the war,
Speaker 5: is now a city of some let's say, one point
Speaker 5: three one point four million people. It's impossible to know precisely.
Speaker 5: People are packed on top of each other in there
Speaker 5: was it was said to be kind of one of
Speaker 5: the last and only safe places in Gaza. Of course,
Speaker 5: it has been hit by IDF air strikes since the
Speaker 5: very beginning, sporadically, just recently more than one hundred people
Speaker 5: were killed in air strikes there. From the podium, the
Speaker 5: State Department has said it would be a disaster if
Speaker 5: Israel went in. John Kirby has said it will be
Speaker 5: a disaster. But at the same time, and you can
Speaker 5: put up the first element here about the true sALS
Speaker 5: ending inconclusively. But at the same time, the new reporting
Speaker 5: is that the United States has not only gotten basically
Speaker 5: no concessions from the Israelis, but Is and relatedly is
Speaker 5: suggesting there will be no consequences if Israel completely rejects
Speaker 5: our insistence that they not engage in this assault. And
Speaker 5: so John Kirby was asked about what the US position
Speaker 5: was on the Israeli assault Rafa.
Speaker 12: Here he is, Oh, we never said that they can't
Speaker 12: go into Rafa to remove from US as remains a
Speaker 12: viable threat to the Israeli people, and Israelis and the
Speaker 12: IDEF absolutely are going to continue operations against their leadership
Speaker 12: and their infrastructure as they should. We don't want to
Speaker 12: see another October seventh. What we said is we don't
Speaker 12: believe that it's advisable to go in in a major
Speaker 12: way in Rafa without a proper, executable, effective, and credible
Speaker 12: plan for the safety of the more than a million
Speaker 12: Palestinians that are taking refuge in Rafa. They've they've left
Speaker 12: the north and they certainly went south out of con
Speaker 12: units to try to get out of the fighting. So
Speaker 12: Israel as an obligation to make sure that they can
Speaker 12: protect them.
Speaker 5: What's what's crazy is that, you know, John Curry was
Speaker 5: recently given a promotion. He's now overseeing all comms for
Speaker 5: basically the entire kind of I forget exactly his title,
Speaker 5: but uh, it was it was a it was a
Speaker 5: it was a signal that the White House is pleased
Speaker 5: with how he's been doing at the podium.
Speaker 4: But but what he says from the podium.
Speaker 5: About what Israel to do is as useful as what
Speaker 5: I say from right here about what Israel ought to do.
Speaker 5: He's like, Israel has obligations not to kill civilians, to
Speaker 5: give them an opportunity to find me save passage.
Speaker 4: I hope that they do this. I say the same thing.
Speaker 5: Well, it's very useful, right, they're listening to neither of us.
Speaker 5: But yet he is one of the most powerful people
Speaker 5: in the world, representing the most powerful government in world history.
Speaker 5: Yet he can't get even the most basic concessions from
Speaker 5: a country of ten plus million people.
Speaker 6: Well, Joe Biden, who like, actually, this is not a
Speaker 6: cheap shot in a speech where he's trying to prove
Speaker 6: how great and competent he is.
Speaker 7: Confused.
Speaker 6: The president of Mexico, the president of Egyptian is the
Speaker 6: one basically the commander in chief. He's the one, ultimately
Speaker 6: at the end of the day, that's broker in these negotiations.
Speaker 6: Obviously they've sent Burns from the CIA, and they have
Speaker 6: other people who are doing the day to day negotiations,
Speaker 6: but it's his decisions at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: and he's not all there. So you have to also
Speaker 6: wonder how much that's affecting the dialogue and the decisions
Speaker 6: that are being made when you have negotiations like this happening.
Speaker 6: Obviously they're happening between the US, Egypt, Israel and cutter
Speaker 6: as you mentioned, But you know, Joe Biden's not there,
Speaker 6: but he's ultimately the buck stops with him, and they
Speaker 6: know they're negotiating on his behalf. But what does anyone
Speaker 6: know about what he thinks should happen in those negotiations.
Speaker 5: Everything we hear about the decision making in the White
Speaker 5: House is that this is a very Biden driven policy. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and you know, Biden is not senile like if he
Speaker 5: mix us things up, He's he's not as sharp as
Speaker 5: he used to be, but you know he's he is.
Speaker 5: He still has his faculties in the sense that he
Speaker 5: is a as he says, a committed Zionist, and he
Speaker 5: is a committed supporter of Israel, you know, basically unconditionally
Speaker 5: to the end, and I think he's kind of the
Speaker 5: last of this breed of of kind of liberal Democrats
Speaker 5: who are going to feel this way. It's Vetterman erasure,
Speaker 5: but sure if maybe Fetterman's a whole nother thing.
Speaker 4: But if you had a Gavin Newsom, JB.
Speaker 5: Pritzker or Whitmer as president right now, or even Kamala
Speaker 5: Harris right now, I think there would be a more
Speaker 5: balanced approach where from Biden, the signal down to his
Speaker 5: people is that there is nothing that the US is
Speaker 5: going to do to restrain Israel.
Speaker 7: But I think his sinility on talk.
Speaker 6: But that's where I think his sinility is affecting this
Speaker 6: because yes, it's sort of it's all downstream of that,
Speaker 6: but nobody knows what implementing that looks like. When he's
Speaker 6: saying other things too for public relations purposes, when you're
Speaker 6: sending people to Dearborn to have these conversations, I mean,
Speaker 6: it's just I don't know what's going on behind closed doors,
Speaker 6: but it's I do think that what he actually wants
Speaker 6: to happen for political purposes and what he wants to
Speaker 6: happen for moral purposes, there's a lot of muddied water
Speaker 6: in between those things, which is leading to completely muddy.
Speaker 5: Yes, I don't think we need sinility to explain it,
Speaker 5: because the White House has true been clear that what
Speaker 5: their strategy is. They called it the bear Hug. They
Speaker 5: laid it out very clearly. We're going to be super
Speaker 5: friendly to Israel in public. That's going to bias the
Speaker 5: credibility with the Israeli leadership and with the Israeli public
Speaker 5: to then be critical behind the scenes, and that is
Speaker 5: going to give us the maximum amount of influence. Like
Speaker 5: that was the strategy that they have laid out, and
Speaker 5: we've seen them execute it.
Speaker 4: Every day we.
Speaker 5: Get multiple articles from sources familiar saying that Joe Biden
Speaker 5: called Yahu some other name.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's a Dodo face or.
Speaker 5: Like you know, a jerk, and all the different things.
Speaker 5: He's very frustrated, increasingly frustrated. In fact, every single day
Speaker 5: he gets increasingly frustrated, and so that allows news organizations
Speaker 5: to continue saying that he's increasingly frustrated because he's more
Speaker 5: frustrated than he was the day before. And so that's
Speaker 5: not stanility. That's an expression of this bear hug strategy.
Speaker 7: It's the White House is expression of the Parahud track.
Speaker 5: Well, it's it's what it would look like if you
Speaker 5: were going to do this. It also isn't working like
Speaker 5: it has been signaled to net Yahu.
Speaker 4: That's what that's what we were going to do.
Speaker 5: So he he hears it, and he just last week
Speaker 5: went on ABC Sunday Morning and said, Okay, I appreciate
Speaker 5: Biden's money, I appreciate what he has to say about this,
Speaker 5: but we're going to do.
Speaker 4: What we're going to do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like he and and he and his party have
Speaker 5: consistently said we're going to do what we're going to do.
Speaker 4: And in the face of that, you can either.
Speaker 5: Try a new strategy which uses actual leverage, which you
Speaker 5: have the money, or you can just continue to get
Speaker 5: increasingly frustrated and come up with new names that you're
Speaker 5: going to lead to The New York Times that you
Speaker 5: called net and Yahoo, and I wish you could pin
Speaker 5: that on sinility. I think that that's it's just what
Speaker 5: Biden wants to do and and he must be comfortable
Speaker 5: with the outcome, otherwise he would do something different.
Speaker 7: I agree with that completely.
Speaker 6: I think the sinility leads to some bad I guess
Speaker 6: like I think the sinility affects the strategy and the
Speaker 6: expression of the strategy.
Speaker 7: But I think it makes a bad.
Speaker 4: Strategy worse essentially, But I think is rigid.
Speaker 5: I think his brain might be stuck in time, like
Speaker 5: he might not be able to adapt to the new
Speaker 5: political realities of twenty twenty four, possibly because he keeps
Speaker 5: talking about Gold of my Air and like that. He
Speaker 5: seems very rooted, like in that under that liberal Zionist
Speaker 5: understanding of.
Speaker 4: The project.
Speaker 7: Yes, in the sort of car era which.
Speaker 4: Doesn't really exist anymore, and so there is no Gold
Speaker 4: of my Air wing anymore.
Speaker 6: To your point, the thing John Kirby just said, they're
Speaker 6: about having an operation. You know, he's saying, we don't
Speaker 6: want a large scale, something massive basically in RAFA, but
Speaker 6: we also don't want another October seven. So that's actually
Speaker 6: a pretty interesting quote. It's totally unsurprising, but it's actually
Speaker 6: a pretty important glimpse into what the strategy is, or
Speaker 6: distillation of what the strategy is, which is that to
Speaker 6: prevent October seventh, to prevent another October seventh, these operations
Speaker 6: have to continue. And obvitually they just rescued two hostages
Speaker 6: from RAFA, So that's a powerful sort of bargaining chip
Speaker 6: in their selling of their strategy. But if this is
Speaker 6: preventing another October seventh, it goes back to this question.
Speaker 6: Biden fundamentally believes they disagree on one state solution, two
Speaker 6: state solution, but they fundamentally agree that they can eradicate Hamas.
Speaker 6: And that is the evidence for that crumbles every single day, Right,
Speaker 6: even if you're rescuing hostages.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and Hamas reported that in that operation, which involved
Speaker 5: these devastating air strikes that killed more than one hundred civilians,
Speaker 5: hamasa's telegram channel reported they also injured eight hostages.
Speaker 4: Three of them died from their injuries. And so that's
Speaker 4: why you the hostage.
Speaker 5: The families of the hostages have been urging them to
Speaker 5: accept a deal that involves exchanging hostages rather than barreling
Speaker 5: guns blazing guns blazing into RAFA, because the chance that
Speaker 5: you kill the hostages in the process of trying to
Speaker 5: rescue them is very high.
Speaker 6: And then having to wait on tenter hooks to find
Speaker 6: out whether the Hamas propaganda that three hostages were killed
Speaker 6: is true, right, it's just unimaginable, torturous, Uncertainly.
Speaker 4: They don't say who for those families right.
Speaker 5: So right, so now you know your you don't know
Speaker 5: if your family member is still alive period. Now you
Speaker 5: don't know if they lived this hell of four months
Speaker 5: in captivity, that then they died in an aerial bombardment
Speaker 5: by the IDF or not.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So let's put b three up on the screen.
Speaker 6: This is tear Street Scoop is really Minister blocking Flower
Speaker 6: bb promised Biden would be allowed into Gaza. That is
Speaker 6: a picture of besilosmochurch and he is Israelly Minister in question.
Speaker 7: Here Ryan tell us about what's happening with this.
Speaker 5: So the US negotiated a deal whereby they would send
Speaker 5: in an enormous amount of flour into.
Speaker 4: Into Gaza.
Speaker 5: That Matt Miller State Department yesterday said it would be
Speaker 5: enough flour I think for like one point five million
Speaker 5: Palestinians for five months. Now, how you turn that flour
Speaker 5: into bread or or anything else is an open question
Speaker 5: for people in Gaza.
Speaker 4: If you talk to.
Speaker 5: Them, it's very difficult for them to find wood to
Speaker 5: burn to cook. It's almost impossible to find you know,
Speaker 5: electricity or you know a stove or like all the
Speaker 5: bakeries have been destroyed, like so and also clean water
Speaker 5: which you need for you know, flour as well.
Speaker 4: All of that is is a challenge.
Speaker 5: However, getting enormous amounts of flour into into Gaza would
Speaker 5: be it would be a godsend for the starving people there.
Speaker 5: Chris van Holland in his in his speech the other
Speaker 5: day is said that on Sunday he for the first
Speaker 5: time was hearing reports of people actually dying of starvation,
Speaker 5: which is which is a step beyond you know, being
Speaker 5: on the brink of starvation and famine. He texted Cindy McCain,
Speaker 5: who's the head of the World Food Program, and she said, yes,
Speaker 5: I can confirm that like this is this is happening.
Speaker 5: There's not enough food getting in. Famine is imminent. People
Speaker 5: are people are actually dying at this point. So and
Speaker 5: the people who are not dying are going to suffer,
Speaker 5: particularly the children, lifelong kind of physical not just not
Speaker 5: just the obvious trauma, but physical problems for the rest
Speaker 5: of their life from from the lack of nutrition for
Speaker 5: this extended period of time is going to retard their
Speaker 5: their their physical, physical and emotional development. Lots of kids
Speaker 5: in a way, yeah, hundreds of thousands of children because
Speaker 5: gods is two million, two million plus people and half
Speaker 5: are children.
Speaker 6: And in Rafa right now, which before was in Rafa, yeah,
Speaker 6: had three hundred thousand people in off Now you're just
Speaker 6: have multiplied that, you know, incalculably.
Speaker 5: And so Smotrich, who's one of the hardest right members
Speaker 5: of the Israeli cabinet, has the capacity to install this
Speaker 5: from getting in. And so now the US is going
Speaker 5: to have to put some pressure on him and have
Speaker 5: stern conversations privately until he gets out of the way
Speaker 5: and lets it in. Not letting in flower to starving
Speaker 5: people is a war crime, like this guy should be
Speaker 5: in prison for the rest of his life for just
Speaker 5: for this one act. Meanwhile, there there are now raves
Speaker 5: being hosted, and we can we can put this up
Speaker 5: here out outside of of Gaza. You've had for weeks now,
Speaker 5: and we're if you're listening on the podcast, we're showing
Speaker 5: this is an actual rave at pretty pathetic looking rave,
Speaker 5: pretty pathetic looking rave, but a rave nonetheless by the border,
Speaker 5: by the fence where AID trucks are trying to get
Speaker 5: into Gaza there for weeks now is really civilians, clearly
Speaker 5: with the cooperation of.
Speaker 4: The military like the military. This is deep into the desert.
Speaker 5: The military could you block civilians from getting down here
Speaker 5: if they wanted to? Have been protesting and blocking aid
Speaker 5: from getting in. So it's not just the government that
Speaker 5: is using all the tools at its disposal to prevent
Speaker 5: humanitarian aid from getting into Gaza, but civilians themselves are
Speaker 5: going down there and now they're dancing to electronic music
Speaker 5: while while they're doing it. It's one of the more
Speaker 5: obscene things I think I've ever seen. At the same time,
Speaker 5: South Africa has gone back to the Hague and asked
Speaker 5: for an emergency in junction to try to stop them
Speaker 5: stop Israel from going into Rafa. It's not as if
Speaker 5: they could even enforce that, if they could get it,
Speaker 5: if they could get it implemented. But every single day,
Speaker 5: people like Smotrich are are producing more and more evidence
Speaker 5: for the Hague.
Speaker 7: So let's roll.
Speaker 6: John Kirby being asked about some of the tactics of
Speaker 6: the IDF and making a hell of a comparison, totally
Speaker 6: unprompted by the ways be five.
Speaker 7: Yeah, let's will be five.
Speaker 12: We have seen them take actions, sometimes actions that even
Speaker 12: I'm not sure our own military would take in terms
Speaker 12: of informing civilian populations ahead of operations where to go,
Speaker 12: where not to go. They have taken steps. Now obviously
Speaker 12: those steps, while noteworthy, haven't been enough to reduce the
Speaker 12: civilian casualties, which is why the President spoke so forthrightly
Speaker 12: about it yesterday and why we're going to continue to
Speaker 12: do everything we can to press these railies to be
Speaker 12: more careful spectfully.
Speaker 11: He's been talking forcefully about it for a long time,
Speaker 11: and these reelings are no have homored people into this
Speaker 11: tiny corner in the south west, got tied up against
Speaker 11: the Egyptian border where people think they're remain catastrophe. Shouldn't
Speaker 11: there be more forceful action than just work.
Speaker 13: We are working very very closely with our Israeli counterparts.
Speaker 13: We've made clear our concerns that we would not support
Speaker 13: a Rafa operation that did not properly count account for
Speaker 13: the more than million refugees that are down in Rafa.
Speaker 12: We've been very very clear and consistent about that.
Speaker 6: So Randa is that the first time we've heard that comparison.
Speaker 6: But what was interesting that in that line is that
Speaker 6: nobody was asking him to compare the UNS and the IDF.
Speaker 4: It's the first time, we've heard it from Democrats.
Speaker 5: If you remember, Ted Cruz made that exact comparison when
Speaker 5: we interviewed him and after and you may have, well, you.
Speaker 6: Pushed him on it because he had said it earlier,
Speaker 6: and you pushed him to sort of explain it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so you may have had the same experience.
Speaker 5: But afterwards, I got a ton of messages, emails from
Speaker 5: the current and former service members, American service members who
Speaker 5: were appalled to hear him say that, saying that, you know,
Speaker 5: for instance, we'd have a high value target, let's say
Speaker 5: in Baghdad in how somebody like an as of spades,
Speaker 5: you know, somebody that they'd been gunning for, you know,
Speaker 5: four months, and there was one potential civilian nearby, and
Speaker 5: the whole thing would be called off. The idea that
Speaker 5: Israel is doing that does not scan at all.
Speaker 6: The New York Times did in depth comparison of the
Speaker 6: US military and the IDFs operations. Now this was more
Speaker 6: than a month ago at this point, so obviously some
Speaker 6: of these numbers may have changed because the type of
Speaker 6: war basically changed when the calendar year changed under pressure
Speaker 6: from the US. We still don't actually know exactly how
Speaker 6: all of that transpired.
Speaker 7: But so maybe these ratios are different.
Speaker 6: But when the New York Times looked into it a
Speaker 6: little more than a month ago, the numbers did not
Speaker 6: suggest that John Kirby was right to make that comparison
Speaker 6: in terms of civilian casualties.
Speaker 5: You know, you know, the actual comparison that you can make.
Speaker 5: It was with Hamas on ten seven, which was a
Speaker 5: I think what two to one no civilian to military casualties,
Speaker 5: which we would all consider horrific, horrifying. Does John Kirby
Speaker 5: think that Hamas's proportionality on ten to seven was appropriate?
Speaker 5: I mean, that's insane, except that, like the numbers are
Speaker 5: roughly it's the same. The proportionality between the number of
Speaker 5: Hamas figures that Israel claims to have killed in the
Speaker 5: number of women and children that we know it has killed,
Speaker 5: versus on ten to seven, the number of soldiers and
Speaker 5: security forces Hamas killed versus the number of civilians who
Speaker 5: were killed.
Speaker 6: And obviously, Hamas argues that that was a defensive action,
Speaker 6: even though I think most of most observers in the
Speaker 6: West would say it was offensive, at least in terms
Speaker 6: of the question of the actual military operation. Hammas argues
Speaker 6: that it's resistance that it's defensive, I think.
Speaker 5: But either way it's military versus civilian. It's like one
Speaker 5: for every two. And Kirby's suggesting that that's equivalent somehow
Speaker 5: to how the US would operate.
Speaker 6: Well, him offering the comparison of his insane like he
Speaker 6: didn't nobody was asking him, nobody was confronting him with
Speaker 6: numbers about the US.
Speaker 7: He just volunteered.
Speaker 5: You seeing the clip that he's just kind of things
Speaker 5: like and actually and he's been in comms. Never mind,
Speaker 5: I don't want to get into Kirby, but it's ridiculous,
Speaker 5: utterly like ridiculous nuns. And also he's forcing me to
Speaker 5: sit here and defend the US military, which.
Speaker 4: Probably you don't want to do.
Speaker 5: That killed like four million people in the last twenty years.
Speaker 5: So like, it's not it's not as if we're we're like,
Speaker 5: you know, some angels out here. And the absolute scale
Speaker 5: and power.
Speaker 6: His administration, the way they got out of Afghanistan was
Speaker 6: a massive civilian casualty incident.
Speaker 5: The massive amount of power that we projected around the
Speaker 5: globe has meant that the scale of our slaughter has been,
Speaker 5: you know, significantly greater than what's happened in the last
Speaker 5: four months in Gaza, but by proportion and by the
Speaker 5: by execution, it's it's absolutely not even close. Like the
Speaker 5: US military has also setting aside the absolute collapse of discipline.
Speaker 5: If if you pretend that what the Israeli soldiers are
Speaker 5: doing on TikTok is is undisciplined and is outside of
Speaker 5: the strategy, it might be. I think at this point
Speaker 5: you have to say it's part of the strategy because
Speaker 5: they're so it's so rampant, and so many soldiers are
Speaker 5: allowed to just post their war crimes on uh, you know,
Speaker 5: on TikTok you see that, like they were they raided
Speaker 5: a woman's house in the West Bank the other day,
Speaker 5: and we're holding up her lingerie and posting photos of
Speaker 5: themselves with it. How Retz just did an article about
Speaker 5: how they're they're cooking with all of the like Palestinians
Speaker 5: like like spices and using their kitchens to like cook
Speaker 5: their meals. Anyway, Uh, it's it's bad stuff. And to
Speaker 5: compare that for John Kirby to like actively dent great
Speaker 5: the US military in service of what more than a
Speaker 5: dozen countries have already concluded as a genocide is just
Speaker 5: beyond the pale, like I can't. I didn't think I'd
Speaker 5: wind up here.
Speaker 6: It should be a bigger story from yesterday that he
Speaker 6: offered that up. So let's move up to New York,
Speaker 6: where a special election yesterday actually could tell us a lot,
Speaker 6: even though it's just one district.
Speaker 4: And is Georgets' seat.
Speaker 6: So this is George Santos's seat. They the results are in,
Speaker 6: we can put this first element up on the screen.
Speaker 6: And actually a former Congressman, Tom Swosey, won this race
Speaker 6: by eight points from what we have now with most
Speaker 6: of the votes actually being counted. If you're up in
Speaker 6: the New York area, as producer Griffin is, you got
Speaker 6: slacked with a snowstorm yesterday on election day, and Ryan,
Speaker 6: you actually have some thoughts on that they have affected
Speaker 6: the voting. But Mazzi Pillop, who was the Republican running
Speaker 6: in this race, a.
Speaker 4: Lot of people are going to look back at a
Speaker 4: former soldier.
Speaker 7: He's a former IDF soldier exactly, yes, verse.
Speaker 5: A very very committed Israel supporter. So like it's not
Speaker 5: as if there was a divide between the two right.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, Ethiopian who I think was able to flee
Speaker 6: to Israel as a refugee and then ultimately came over
Speaker 6: to the United States. This was the Democrats, it should
Speaker 6: be noted outspent Republicans like basically two to one. It
Speaker 6: was a fourteen million versus eighteen million overall in spending.
Speaker 6: A lot of the heavy issues here were abortion and immigration.
Speaker 6: But Swosey supported the quote unquote bipartisan immigration deal that
Speaker 6: Chuck Schumer had brokeered with James Langford and Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 6: and there's some analysis that that allowed him to cover
Speaker 6: on the question of immigration. But either way, Ryan an
Speaker 6: eight point race here. Flipping now, Joe Biden won this
Speaker 6: district by eight points in twenty twenty. The reason that
Speaker 6: this district is interesting is because it's long sort of
Speaker 6: been a swing area. It's Nassau County, a little bit
Speaker 6: of Queen's actual in it, but it's been a.
Speaker 7: District that helps us sort of gauge the sort of barometer.
Speaker 6: It's a barometer of political sentiments in the suburbs. And
Speaker 6: it looks like Democrats used abortion, blunted the Republican tax
Speaker 6: and immigration effectively and won this one pretty handily.
Speaker 5: And also the voting Republicans have put themselves at a
Speaker 5: structural disadvantage by refusing to vote by mail, which then
Speaker 5: puts themselves at the whims of the weather. And if
Speaker 5: there's something crazy like a snowstorm on election day, you're
Speaker 5: going to be in trouble.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Like middle of the day, I posted that Republicans refusing
Speaker 5: to vote by mail is going to cost them this
Speaker 5: House seat. It wasn't a hard prediction to make because
Speaker 5: this is by the morning and there was so much
Speaker 5: snow that the polling locations were empty. We actually have
Speaker 5: a clip here from America's mayor outside of his own
Speaker 5: It looks like elementary school talking about the weather a
Speaker 5: little bit.
Speaker 4: Let's roll some Eric Adams here.
Speaker 14: Outing queens p one my whole public school, checking out
Speaker 14: the roads, and clearly you see that DS and wise
Speaker 14: out flow on the streets doing what they're doing best.
Speaker 6: So, just as a visual if if you're listening to this,
Speaker 6: Eric Adams is wearing this seven hundred dollars friendy scarf
Speaker 6: that he wore to a briefing about I think it
Speaker 6: was about migrants last week, and the New York Post
Speaker 6: like Daily Mail wrote it up. And he is holding
Speaker 6: firm standing on his principle and refuses to give up
Speaker 6: the seven hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: Friend, he probably his favorite scarf.
Speaker 6: Well, if you spent seven hundred dollars on a scarf,
Speaker 6: I would.
Speaker 4: Hope it's your that feels like, must be must be nice.
Speaker 7: Yes, must be nice. Hell of a flex there, Eric Adams.
Speaker 6: But righting, your point is one that a lot of
Speaker 6: people who are on the right are starting to internalize
Speaker 6: and realizing, especially that if you're sort of if the
Speaker 6: margins that you're trying to make up maybe with the
Speaker 6: white working class are not energized by a particular candidate,
Speaker 6: and are not energized to get out the vote when
Speaker 6: there's a snowstorm. If you're not doing the mill in
Speaker 6: voting ahead, you are going to be screwed when there
Speaker 6: is a snowstorm. And you reminded us of this yesterday.
Speaker 6: You had a funny conversation about Reno. Yes, tell us
Speaker 6: because it's a perfect anecdote.
Speaker 5: Yes, during the twenty twenty election or twenty twenty two,
Speaker 5: I think it's twenty two, right, when there was a
Speaker 5: Nevada Senate race up, Yeah, yeah, Republican Senate strategist, I
Speaker 5: was talking to him in the morning and how you look,
Speaker 5: and he's like, we're looking great things.
Speaker 4: Things are looking good for us.
Speaker 5: As long as there's not a blizzard in Reno on
Speaker 5: election day, and sure enough, blizzard in Reno, Reno, Reno,
Speaker 5: turnout collapses. It also sets up Republicans to get screwed
Speaker 5: by their opponents. So in Arizona, remember there were some
Speaker 5: like Maricopa voting problems that slowed voting down for a
Speaker 5: couple of hours. Now, yeah, hey, you know sometimes you
Speaker 5: have problems. But think about it. If one party is
Speaker 5: voting ahead of time at a huge proportion, and the
Speaker 5: other party is waiting until election day to vote, but
Speaker 5: the party that does all of its early voting also
Speaker 5: controls all the cities and therefore controls the voting yes
Speaker 5: in those cities. Not that they would do this, but
Speaker 5: it does allow them the opportunity to forget a printer cartridge,
Speaker 5: or if somebody forgot a password, and you know what,
Speaker 5: we got to reboot the computers. Real shame, Sorry about this.
Speaker 5: Voting is going to be a little bit of a
Speaker 5: pain here at this center. You might have to vote
Speaker 5: provisionally over here. Don't worry, we'll take care of it.
Speaker 5: Not that anybody would do that, but it does set
Speaker 5: you up for a situation where you're you're putting your
Speaker 5: entire fate in the hands of the good Lord and
Speaker 5: his good weather, or the good Democrats and their willingness
Speaker 5: to run smooth elections for you because all of their
Speaker 5: voters have already voted. It's the level of short term
Speaker 5: thinking is incredible, and it's happening at the same time
Speaker 5: that the realignment is making it so Republicans have a
Speaker 5: lot more attenemant voters.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if you're a suburban your suburban now sort of
Speaker 6: upper middle class, how are.
Speaker 4: Your polling places, you're a homeowner, or you get.
Speaker 7: Your ballot in the mail and you will return it early.
Speaker 5: You're going to vote, like you can put up all
Speaker 5: the voter suppression tools in front of that you have
Speaker 5: at your disposal, those people are going to vote. That
Speaker 5: was the theory for Republicans through the eighties and nineties
Speaker 5: and way before that too, that Democratic voters, if you
Speaker 5: put in universal voter suppression efforts like forcing people to
Speaker 5: jump through a bunch of different hoops, that Democratic voters
Speaker 5: were poor, more working class, it was going to be
Speaker 5: harder for them to get through those hoops, and it
Speaker 5: would be an advantage to Republicans.
Speaker 4: That's now flipped.
Speaker 5: And if you put up hurdles for everybody, Democratic voters
Speaker 5: are now going to be able to get through those
Speaker 5: hoops more than the Republican voters who might jump through
Speaker 5: hoops and hoops on fire for Donald Trump, but other
Speaker 5: than him. And I'm like it's snowing, I'm like showing
Speaker 5: up today.
Speaker 6: Just from a conservative perspective, this was a raging debate.
Speaker 6: It still is a debate, but it was a raging
Speaker 6: debate for a while as to whether you just adapt
Speaker 6: vote by mail or you basically try to convince your
Speaker 6: candidates to have plans that would totally tighten up elections.
Speaker 6: And personally, I detest mail in voting. I think it's
Speaker 6: very I think it's an insecure voting method and it's
Speaker 6: easily manipulated. That said, if you are not coupling all
Speaker 6: of this with some strategy to actually limit mail in
Speaker 6: voting and make it so that people have to go
Speaker 6: to the polls on election day, I'm like one of
Speaker 6: the people that leaves.
Speaker 7: It should just be a day.
Speaker 6: You should give people off, you should make it a
Speaker 6: holiday and vote that day. Unless you're you know, in
Speaker 6: the military or disabled, or have some like obvious mitigating circumstance.
Speaker 7: I think that's the best way to do it.
Speaker 6: But but if that's not happening, which is just hard
Speaker 6: to see how that's happening, we're like, we're not moving
Speaker 6: towards that on a policy level. And Republicans, I think
Speaker 6: to some extent, are going to put their heads and
Speaker 6: be baring their heads in the sand. If they think
Speaker 6: that's coming and that's doable on any type of mass scale,
Speaker 6: then you're really going to be screwed when this type
Speaker 6: of thing happens. Now, ryan to be fair, the Sposey
Speaker 6: would have won won this race, no storm or not.
Speaker 5: It looks like it does look like that because the
Speaker 5: polls had him up by a cup between one and three,
Speaker 5: and I think the eight point when you could maybe
Speaker 5: contribute half that to poor Republican turnout on election day.
Speaker 5: People can sort through the numbers more. But yes, it
Speaker 5: does look like regardless, he would have won. But when
Speaker 5: control of the House is hinges on a couple of seats,
Speaker 5: and you always have dozens of seats that hinge on
Speaker 5: just a couple thousand votes, then.
Speaker 4: It will it will end up mattering.
Speaker 6: Pillip is actually, by the way, still a registered Democrat.
Speaker 6: And so when you want to get high Republican turnout
Speaker 6: and enthusiasm for somebody who's being pushed on why she
Speaker 6: hasn't changed her registration from being a Democrat. She got
Speaker 6: questions from local journalists about this. That's going to be
Speaker 6: very difficult.
Speaker 7: She said.
Speaker 6: The Democratic Party left her, which can be a persuasive
Speaker 6: and convincing message if you had.
Speaker 4: Changed your voter registration.
Speaker 6: May so, I think there's going to be a lot
Speaker 6: of speculation just that she was really not a good candidate.
Speaker 6: She didn't seem to want to campaign. A lot of
Speaker 6: people said she was kind of Mia from the campaign trail.
Speaker 6: They were relying very heavily on surrogates. One of the
Speaker 6: interesting things is that Santos got money and acclaim when
Speaker 6: he was running for the checking off a lot of
Speaker 6: the identity politics boxes. This is suburban area, so he's
Speaker 6: a gay minority Republican and was able to sort of
Speaker 6: be Mago without being Mago.
Speaker 4: Money just by swiping people's credit.
Speaker 6: Well he did that too, but money from like the
Speaker 6: Republican Party.
Speaker 7: They were like.
Speaker 6: Excited about him and pill Up by the way I
Speaker 6: think probably excited Republicans for similar reasons, which is fascinating
Speaker 6: because it shows just the utter stupidity of Republicans who think,
Speaker 6: you know, if we can just check off the identity
Speaker 6: politics boxes, we'll convince everybody that we're cool.
Speaker 7: Like, yeah, you guys are doing it.
Speaker 5: One funny point on her voter registration. You know how
Speaker 5: everybody always says I didn't leave my party. My party
Speaker 5: left me. She literally didn't leave her party.
Speaker 7: She didn't.
Speaker 4: She meant that literally, like I didn't leave my party.
Speaker 4: So right before we were well they're all still registered
Speaker 4: Democrats too, She's like, well, I thought they left.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I thought they were gone.
Speaker 6: So let's actually roll this clip of protesters at Swazi's
Speaker 6: election victory party, basically.
Speaker 4: Where Democrats go.
Speaker 6: Notice his protesting, yeah, robotic, Like he actually looks like
Speaker 6: an animatronic guy at Disney World when they're protesting, and
Speaker 6: he just keeps fist pumping. So take a close look
Speaker 6: at that, and I'm going to ask grand his thoughts
Speaker 6: on how Swazi will govern.
Speaker 5: Okay, the very end, you step protests just like thrown
Speaker 5: off the stage.
Speaker 4: So I turned from a normal protest to hope that
Speaker 4: person's okay pretty quickly.
Speaker 6: Yes, And you made the point that Swazi, first of all,
Speaker 6: he did her attack to the center on immigration, and
Speaker 6: you made the point about not a lot of daylight
Speaker 6: between him and pill Up on Israel.
Speaker 5: Like and everything else, Like he's a very kind of
Speaker 5: center right standard like he's not even actually today's standard
Speaker 5: Democrat is more like a center left one where he's
Speaker 5: more of an old school kind of blue dog center right,
Speaker 5: suburban suburban democrat. In his in his victory speech, he
Speaker 5: kind of went after the squad a little bit and
Speaker 5: also said he's going to make sure that your state
Speaker 5: and local taxes can be deducted from her like that.
Speaker 5: That was in his victory speech, and I got a
Speaker 5: big cheer also.
Speaker 7: That does always does it for those blue dog down.
Speaker 5: Yeah, these are so if you make a bunch of
Speaker 5: money in Long Island, what he's basically telling you is
Speaker 5: that you're going to get a nice tax break.
Speaker 7: Sounds good.
Speaker 4: Sounds good for those people in Long Island and make
Speaker 4: a lot of money.
Speaker 6: And Republicans were hoping definitely that the sort of general
Speaker 6: Biden malaise would bring Swazi down. And if that's the case,
Speaker 6: if that brought Swazi down. He's still won by eight points.
Speaker 4: That's not the district where it's going to bring him down.
Speaker 6: So actually, on that point, let's talk about new inflation numbers.
Speaker 6: Because Paul Kregman is out with a column that says
Speaker 6: Biden should be running on the election. This is a
Speaker 6: repeat of what New York Times columnists. And he's won
Speaker 6: a Pulitzer, hasn't he?
Speaker 4: Krugman a Nobut Pulitzy definitely want a Nobel.
Speaker 6: Bro He want a Nobel Prize as well, one of them.
Speaker 6: But yes, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has repeatedly
Speaker 6: in the pages of the New York Times been telling
Speaker 6: people that the economy they sense as bad is actually fine,
Speaker 6: and from his vantage point in Manhattan, they're wrong about
Speaker 6: how they feel in the economy, and right, I think
Speaker 6: some of these inflation numbers we can put this first
Speaker 6: element up on the screen.
Speaker 7: I think some of these.
Speaker 6: Inflation numbers explain why both Biden and Krugman are having
Speaker 6: a hard time making that case. When we got the
Speaker 6: January inflation data, consumer prices rose three point one percent
Speaker 6: in January twenty twenty four from a year before. According
Speaker 6: to the Wall Street Journal. They rose the fastest for
Speaker 6: frozen non carbonated juices and drinks. That's a very specific
Speaker 6: place where inflection saw. It was a change from twenty
Speaker 6: nine percent of twenty nine percent from prices a year ago.
Speaker 6: This month had the largest drop. They fell from twenty
Speaker 6: eight point six percent. Let's roll this clip. Let's roll
Speaker 6: this clip on inflation. This was actually posted by the RNC,
Speaker 6: and you can sort of see why they might have
Speaker 6: posted it.
Speaker 7: Let's roll it.
Speaker 15: Headline number expected to be up two tenths of a percent,
Speaker 15: is up three tens of percent. That's the hottest SINCEEP
Speaker 15: of twenty three, when it was up.
Speaker 4: Four tenths of percent.
Speaker 15: Strip out food and energy even hotter, up four tenths
Speaker 15: of a percent. Also one tenth hotter than expected, up
Speaker 15: four tens of percent. Well, you equal that going to
Speaker 15: May of last year. You surpassed it going to April
Speaker 15: of last year when it was up point five. The
Speaker 15: year over year numbers also hotter three point one. On
Speaker 15: headline year over year, we're expecting two point nine, but
Speaker 15: did make progress versus the rear view mirror, which stands
Speaker 15: at three point four.
Speaker 7: Now, if you consider three point.
Speaker 15: One we've already been there. We were there in November
Speaker 15: of last year, and we were at three point oh
Speaker 15: in June of last year. Finally, CPI year over year core.
Speaker 15: I think one of the ones I'm paying most attention
Speaker 15: to three point nine percent exactly is the recent month
Speaker 15: December three point nine, two tenths hotter than expected.
Speaker 6: So let's also run this clip of Jillian Michaels on
Speaker 6: Bill Maher. She actually specifically mentions the price of eggs, which,
Speaker 6: as we saw, just had the biggest job. But she
Speaker 6: sort of went to totel with Bill Maher on his
Speaker 6: show about inflation.
Speaker 7: Let's roll that up.
Speaker 1: But this is an amazing to you, Like it was
Speaker 1: in the paper today about this country came out of
Speaker 1: the pandemic way better than we just fucked. We won
Speaker 1: the pandemic economically, I mean, America, I don't feel that way.
Speaker 7: Explain it to me. I feel like inflation's insane number.
Speaker 1: Every inflation is not insane, bil I hope there's numbers.
Speaker 1: I understand things.
Speaker 7: But it has tripled here. Look, I get that.
Speaker 1: People buy some fucking eggs, feelings, and then there's the numbers. Ok,
Speaker 1: then the numbers, well, the numbers have come down a
Speaker 1: lot in the last six months. Of course they were.
Speaker 1: It was inevitable when we gave six trillion dollars so
Speaker 1: that everybody could hide under the bed from the forever
Speaker 1: flu that was never going to end.
Speaker 7: Well, it was taken by the richest people ever, and
Speaker 7: it was.
Speaker 1: A lot of it was stolen. It was it was
Speaker 1: we agree on that too. It was like it was
Speaker 1: there some response needed. Of course, you don't want the
Speaker 1: hospitals overrun, but it was just a massive overreaction and
Speaker 1: that did cause some of the inflation.
Speaker 6: What do you make of that, Ryan, because I think
Speaker 6: when you look at the inflation numbers, and you and
Speaker 6: I were talking a little bit about this, Uh, they
Speaker 6: have gone down, but they've gone down from such a
Speaker 6: high that they're still high. So saying that they've gone
Speaker 6: down is not enough to say. And also, by the way,
Speaker 6: if you're experiencing like, for example, vehicle insurance, car insurance
Speaker 6: is one of those things that is like extremely high
Speaker 6: right now, so for different people experience.
Speaker 5: Because of carjackings and breakings exactly. Also actually significantly because
Speaker 5: of severe weather like storms, and this is so a
Speaker 5: significant This is I'm glad you brought this up. A
Speaker 5: significant driver of the overall inflation number, believe it or not,
Speaker 5: is the price of car insurance, and a significant driver
Speaker 5: the price of car insurance is not just the theft,
Speaker 5: but more more precisely the number of storms, floods, hurricanes,
Speaker 5: just damage being done by extreme weather events to cars.
Speaker 5: And so it's it's a way that kind of climate
Speaker 5: change is creeping into our kind of just our just
Speaker 5: general life in a way beyond kind of the obvious
Speaker 5: of like oh wow, it's a whole lot warmer, and
Speaker 5: and like there's droughts everywhere.
Speaker 6: If you don't find yourself buying car insurance, then you know,
Speaker 6: especially if you're really urban and you don't have a car,
Speaker 6: youly in public transportation, then this is a part of
Speaker 6: inflation that you're just not experiencing.
Speaker 7: It's totally out of your mind, out side, out of mind.
Speaker 5: You can and for everybody else who is experiencing it,
Speaker 5: you see it, you see your numbers go up.
Speaker 4: But the way you feel is you.
Speaker 5: Just have less money in your bank account because you
Speaker 5: know you're probably doing automatic withdrawal.
Speaker 4: It's like, wait, why do I what's going on here?
Speaker 5: And so it's just a it just contributes to this
Speaker 5: kind of overall sense that you're running faster and like
Speaker 5: in a dream and just not being able to move as.
Speaker 6: Quickly, And depending on where you are, gas prices for example,
Speaker 6: are really really bad or okay.
Speaker 7: So there are a lot of different.
Speaker 6: Parts of the economy that if you're experiencing this different person, well,
Speaker 6: you can look at, you know, maybe the overall basket
Speaker 6: down over the last couple of years. You can see
Speaker 6: where a lot of Americans don't feel good about it.
Speaker 6: And yes, to the point that we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 6: it was so bad that dropping from it being so
Speaker 6: bad to just being bad is not.
Speaker 7: A great line for Biden to run on.
Speaker 5: I think you've got some precise numbers there, But since
Speaker 5: Biden was sworn in, and I think this is the
Speaker 5: key thing that people like Krugman need to keep in mind,
Speaker 5: Inflation has run it roughly since I think seventeen is
Speaker 5: seventeen percent. Things are seventeen percent more expensive now than
Speaker 5: they were when Biden was sworn in, and hourly wages
Speaker 5: are up like thirteen or fourteen percent, which means that
Speaker 5: your purchasing power is down, like your standard of living
Speaker 5: is down.
Speaker 4: You're poorer than you were when.
Speaker 5: He was torn in Yes, and people don't people watch
Speaker 5: gas prices moving day to day. But I think the
Speaker 5: way that they understand prices is on a longer timeline,
Speaker 5: thinking back a couple of years. And you also remember
Speaker 5: kind of the best moments more than you remember and
Speaker 5: you remember the worst moment, but you don't remember the
Speaker 5: ones in between as much. So it's easy to think
Speaker 5: like there was that brutal period of inflation and things
Speaker 5: have not really come down. And yes, wages are up
Speaker 5: for a lot of people, but wage gains are not
Speaker 5: distributed evenly. Wage gains are distributed to people who switch jobs.
Speaker 5: You get some you know, you know, some colas at
Speaker 5: the end of the year if you stay in your job,
Speaker 5: but oftentimes you have to switch jobs to get that raise.
Speaker 5: And so when we say that you know, hourly wages
Speaker 5: are up thirteen percent, it doesn't mean everybody's wages are
Speaker 5: up thirteen percent. Psychologically, also, people understand price increases as
Speaker 5: not their fault, somebody else's fault, actually the president's fault,
Speaker 5: Like that's that's his problem, that's his fault.
Speaker 4: Why I'm paying more for these things?
Speaker 5: If your wages go up unless you're an effective communicator
Speaker 5: like an FDR or somebody, and you're seeing like a
Speaker 5: mass kind of labor movement. Most people are going to say,
Speaker 5: my wages are up because I'm a good worker and
Speaker 5: because I deserve those wages. And you are a good worker,
Speaker 5: and you do deserve those wages. But your wages are
Speaker 5: also up because of macroeconomic policies that have given workers
Speaker 5: more power. But so that's why I think the economy
Speaker 5: is so tough in this moment, because people are not
Speaker 5: going to give credit for their wages to bidens.
Speaker 4: They feel like they did that.
Speaker 5: But they are going to blame Biden for the fact
Speaker 5: that things are more expensive. And then you layer on
Speaker 5: top of that the most important thing, which is housing.
Speaker 5: Housing is now so expensive and gobbling up everybody's income
Speaker 5: that if that, even if your wages are up in
Speaker 5: this core inflation minus shelter is coming down, you're still
Speaker 5: suffering from that.
Speaker 7: And if you're already own your house, then you're not
Speaker 7: experiencing that.
Speaker 5: But three percent unemployment and wages growing faster than inflation,
Speaker 5: which we have now is good and I think people
Speaker 5: should not forget that. And also to defend Bill Maher's
Speaker 5: point there, compared to the rest of the world, if
Speaker 5: he's going to say we won the pandemic, we're doing
Speaker 5: better than anywhere else in the world. Everywhere else in
Speaker 5: the world has worse unemployment and higher inflation, So that
Speaker 5: that does deserve to be underlined.
Speaker 6: So one of the things Biden started early in his administration,
Speaker 6: first of all comparing himself to FDR and having John
Speaker 6: Meacham tell him, you know, how comfortable he was the
Speaker 6: FDR in the Oval Office, but also talking about how
Speaker 6: he was going to tackle corporate greed because corporate greed
Speaker 6: was a huge driver of inflation. That talk is basically
Speaker 6: absent from the White House right now. It seems like
Speaker 6: they've decided on the strategy to just ignore consumer prices
Speaker 6: and wage growth and not talk about it. You see
Speaker 6: them every few weeks like try to trot out Bidenomics,
Speaker 6: but they've largely kind of given it up, and they
Speaker 6: talked in these sort of broad sweeping terms about how
Speaker 6: Americans are all better off.
Speaker 7: But it seems like their.
Speaker 6: New strategy is just to ignore inflation altogether rather than
Speaker 6: pinning it on corporate greed. Because Biden came in office
Speaker 6: pledging to hackle corporate greed and pledging to make uh.
Speaker 7: You know, by some estimates it's more.
Speaker 6: Than it accounts for more than half of inflation, and
Speaker 6: people can dispute that, but it accounts for a significant
Speaker 6: trunk of inflation, the corporate price bouging.
Speaker 7: Essentially, he said he was going to He said he
Speaker 7: was going to tackle it.
Speaker 4: And that's probably the FTC.
Speaker 5: Leana Khan and the FTC and the anti trust folks
Speaker 5: at the d J are suing everybody all over the
Speaker 5: place and winning some serious cases. But yeah, it's not
Speaker 5: it hasn't. It hasn't been rhetorically uh, front, front and center.
Speaker 5: But it is one of the strongest parts I think
Speaker 5: of the the of the Biden administration that you know,
Speaker 5: Trump is really happy to see these numbers because I
Speaker 5: think Trump's huge fear is that between now and the
Speaker 5: election there will be an interest rate cut, which which
Speaker 5: would then you know, you know, spur another stock market boom,
Speaker 5: which people will say, well, you know, only half the
Speaker 5: country has hold stocks. But it also does produce vibes,
Speaker 5: infects the mood. Yeah, and also it will it will
Speaker 5: it would push down interest rates on mortgages and so
Speaker 5: people then would be able to start to say, you know,
Speaker 5: right now, people are just locked in, like people who
Speaker 5: people who own a home are locked in with with
Speaker 5: their like awesome little three percent interest rates that they
Speaker 5: that they refinance during during the pandemic, and if you
Speaker 5: don't have a home, you're staring at, you know, something
Speaker 5: like seven or eight percent interest rates on a on
Speaker 5: a mortgage, which means that the kind of house you
Speaker 5: can afford is doesn't meet what you need. And so
Speaker 5: everybody's locked out. It's like a game of musical chairs
Speaker 5: that music just stopped. When interest rates come back down,
Speaker 5: that's the music coming back on you. And you're going
Speaker 5: to see kind of a lot of wealth flow into
Speaker 5: the economy because finally people will be able to sell
Speaker 5: their houses and you know, there's a lot of pent
Speaker 5: up demand for people to move, and people will be
Speaker 5: able to buy houses. Finally if you get interest rates
Speaker 5: mortgage let's you say you get mortgage rates back down
Speaker 5: to like stay five percent or something. This eight percent stuff.
Speaker 5: You know people say in the eighties it was you
Speaker 5: got up to sixteen twenty percent, which is insane, but
Speaker 5: also houses cost like twenty thousand dollars when it houses
Speaker 5: like five hundred thousand dollars. That is a whole different
Speaker 5: can of worms.
Speaker 6: All right, Ryan, we have a really interesting guest that
Speaker 6: you brought in. I'm excited to get to Shaba's gill
Speaker 6: right after this. Well, that does it for today's edition
Speaker 6: of Counterpoints, Ryan, Shabbaz is a very busy man.
Speaker 7: As people may have heard.
Speaker 4: We said we had Shabaz Gil. It was a lie.
Speaker 4: We did not have did not have Shabaz Gil.
Speaker 5: Although he although he was booked, he's in the US
Speaker 5: operating on Pakistan time.
Speaker 4: I suspect he might not be awake. Yeah, but we will.
Speaker 4: We will rebook him again.
Speaker 5: Shabbaz Is was I Ron Khan's chief of staff while
Speaker 5: I Ron Khan was Prime Minister, and he's now kind
Speaker 5: of his American representative.
Speaker 4: These are.
Speaker 5: In tense days for anybody involved in Pakistani politics, for sure,
Speaker 5: because right now also, and maybe we can add this
Speaker 5: in posts, but Korean Jean Pierre was asked about the
Speaker 5: Pakistan elections recently and what she said actually maybe unintentionally
Speaker 5: mirrors what Imran Khan's party has been saying lately. She says,
Speaker 5: we need to respect the will of the election, respect
Speaker 5: the will of the people.
Speaker 4: In the election and a lot of the state departments.
Speaker 5: Thing that members of Congress have been saying that the
Speaker 5: phrase PTI in Ron Khan's party has been using is
Speaker 5: respect the mandate. I don't even know if they know
Speaker 5: that they're almost mirroring the messaging from Imran Khan's party,
Speaker 5: because what Imran Khan means by respect the mandate is
Speaker 5: that they can prove with documentation given to them by
Speaker 5: polling locations, that they won one hundred and eighty seats
Speaker 5: in the National Assembly, which is a majority and means
Speaker 5: they can form a government. The military establishment there has
Speaker 5: gutted that and changed the numbers and is claiming that
Speaker 5: they have something like a ninety seat victory, which is
Speaker 5: still more than anybody else, including Nawaz Sharif's party, who
Speaker 5: is the military backed candidate Connis saying respect the mandate
Speaker 5: give us one hundred and eighty seats.
Speaker 6: Is it fair to say he's also the US backed
Speaker 6: candidate Nuwaj Sharif.
Speaker 5: Absolutely yes, the US and military back candidates Nawaj Shreef.
Speaker 5: Here's what's hilarious. The documents also show that Nowaz Sharif
Speaker 5: himself lost his own race in the National Assembly by
Speaker 5: something like fifty thousand votes to a woman who's in.
Speaker 4: Prison right now.
Speaker 5: But they changed all the numbers so that he can win,
Speaker 5: because actually, if he loses, he can't become prime minister
Speaker 5: because you have to be in the National Assembly to
Speaker 5: become prime minister. Now, there could be some workarounds because
Speaker 5: there are some set aside seats for people who win,
Speaker 5: so they could give him one of the set aside seats,
Speaker 5: but it would be an absolute complete humiliation for him
Speaker 5: to lose his own race. It's like when the when
Speaker 5: the Democratic Speaker of the House lost in like the
Speaker 5: nineteen eighties, lost his race, but he didn't lose it
Speaker 5: in the nineteen eighties to a woman in prison.
Speaker 4: That his own kind of force is imprisoned and her.
Speaker 5: Defeat of him from prison is symbolic of the refusal
Speaker 5: of Pakistani people to be intimidated by this, the intense
Speaker 5: amount of violence and suppression dealt out by the US
Speaker 5: backed military.
Speaker 6: There just a hell of a week in Pakistan. Your
Speaker 6: coverage of it has been fascinating to watch.
Speaker 4: And we'll get we'll get Shabaz on some other time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we forgive him, and it's calmer for all of
Speaker 5: the interviews that I have missed over the years.
Speaker 4: Like you people being like, hey you doing this, I'm like,
Speaker 4: did I agree to that? Sorry?
Speaker 7: Amazing?
Speaker 6: Well, we'll be back with more kind of points next week.
Speaker 6: And once again, remember if you go to Breaking points
Speaker 6: dot com right now, there's a special twenty five percent
Speaker 6: off you get to see those RFK Junior focus group
Speaker 6: interviews early, amazing interviews. I'm so glad that Crystal and
Speaker 6: Sagar and Maca Griffin have set those up. They're very,
Speaker 6: very helpful, so you get them early and you get
Speaker 6: the full counterpoint showed. You're inbox if you subscribe to premium,
Speaker 6: which is now twenty five percent off at Breakingpoints dot com.
Speaker 6: We'll be back next Monday, Wednesday.
Speaker 4: That's also a lie.
Speaker 5: I'll be back on Monday, that's right with Sager, and
Speaker 5: then I'm going to Mexico. Don't worry about it, Cristal
Speaker 5: will be here. Be a ladies show on Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: It will be a lot of fun. Not as fun
Speaker 6: as you'll be having in Mexico at your fish concert,
Speaker 6: but fun. Nonetheless, it'll be.
Speaker 4: A good time down there. I'll be thinking of you.
Speaker 4: See you later.