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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here

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Speaker 1: and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 1: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 1: the studio ad staff, give you, guys, the best independent

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Speaker 1: coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about,

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Speaker 1: it means the absolute world to have your support. What

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Speaker 1: are you waiting for? Become a premium subscriber today at

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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot com. Good morning everybody, Happy Thursday. We have

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Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have

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Speaker 1: grissal Indeed, we do big breaking news for you this morning.

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Speaker 1: Facebook slash Meta has decided to let the big guy himself,

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump back on the platform. Not a huge surprise

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Speaker 1: at this point. I mean, the guy is running again.

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Speaker 1: Like there was a lot of pressure for them to

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Speaker 1: ultimately do this. But we'll dig into the decision because

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Speaker 1: they've thrown into caveats there as well, trying to kind

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Speaker 1: of have it both ways same time. Huge huge news

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Speaker 1: with regard to Ukraine, we have decided to send them tanks.

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Speaker 1: That is a line in the sand that we'd drawn

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Speaker 1: previously and even as recently as five days ago. There

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Speaker 1: are all kinds of news articles that were like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. Well now we are,

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Speaker 1: so talk about what that means. We also have some

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Speaker 1: new financial disclosures from George Santos that, if anything, just

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Speaker 1: deepened the mystery of where his cash that he put

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Speaker 1: into his campaign actually came from. We've got the Mississippi

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Speaker 1: auditor some incredible video of him sounding off on that

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Speaker 1: Brett Favre welfare scandal. Nancy Pelosi caught in a gigantic

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Speaker 1: trade just before major antitrust action against Google and in

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Speaker 1: a related anti trust no. We also have Jim Kramer

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Speaker 1: melting down on CNBC about government action against some of

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Speaker 1: these big companies. We have Ryan Cooper on the show

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Speaker 1: today to dig into an idea that has just been floated,

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Speaker 1: which is using a sovereign wealth fund in order to

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Speaker 1: fund social security. So be interesting get his take on

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Speaker 1: all of that. Yeah, but let's start with Facebook. This

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Speaker 1: is obviously huge in the realm of tech and censorship,

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Speaker 1: so let's go ahead and put this up there on

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Speaker 1: the screen. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, always have

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Speaker 1: to say that is ending its suspension of Donald Trump's

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Speaker 1: accounts with new guardrails to deter quote repeat offensive written

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Speaker 1: by Nick Clegg, the former British politician the president of

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Speaker 1: Global Affairs over at Meta, He says, quote, we will

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Speaker 1: be ending the suspension of mister Trump's Facebook and Instagram

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Speaker 1: accounts in the coming weeks. We have put in new

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Speaker 1: guardrails to place to deter repeat offenses. The public should

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Speaker 1: be able to hear what politicians are saying so they

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Speaker 1: can make informed choices. Imagine what a controversial decision, So

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Speaker 1: here's what they say. The public should be able to

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Speaker 1: hear what the politicians are saying, the good, the bad,

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Speaker 1: and the ugly, so they can make informed choices to

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Speaker 1: the ballot box. I agree, but that does not mean

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Speaker 1: there are no limits to what people can say on

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Speaker 1: our platform when there's a clear risk of real world harm.

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Speaker 1: A deliberately high bar for Meta to intervene in public

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Speaker 1: disclosure we act now. Of course, that is an outrageous standard,

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Speaker 1: one of which is deeply capricious, and of which is

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Speaker 1: completely open to their own interpretation. Go through a whole

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Speaker 1: bunch of fake legalies. And the reason I'm saying that

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Speaker 1: is there's no law. All of this is contrived this

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Speaker 1: blog post refers to its oversight board, to its internal processes. Listen,

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Speaker 1: it's all fake. They claimed that, oh, well, after a

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Speaker 1: rigorous standard put into place, we decided on January eighth

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Speaker 1: to suspend Donald Trump's account on Facebook as if it

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Speaker 1: was part of some long standing decision, and then finally

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Speaker 1: enter that's outrageous. All of it was done in a

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Speaker 1: completely supposedly uncoordinated act by Twitter, Facebook and many other

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Speaker 1: big tech platforms with regards to Trump, and of kind

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Speaker 1: of a post January sixth hysteria. But whenever they do

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Speaker 1: restore the account, they say some things which we should

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Speaker 1: hold them to account in the future. They say, quote,

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Speaker 1: the normal state of affairs is that the public should

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Speaker 1: be able to hear from a former president of the

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Speaker 1: United States and a declared candidate for office again on

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Speaker 1: our platform. Now that time period of suspension has elapsed,

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Speaker 1: the question is not whether we choose to reinstate mister

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Speaker 1: Trump's account, but whether there remain such extraordinary circumstances that

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Speaker 1: justify extending the suspension beyond the original two year period. Gristle.

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Speaker 1: They say that they have now quote new guardrails in place,

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Speaker 1: and that there will be a strike system, and that

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Speaker 1: should he ever quote endanger the public again in the future,

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Speaker 1: that they will take his account down. But look, at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, this is all in Mark

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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg's hand. He made the call to take it down,

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Speaker 1: he made the call to put him back on. It's

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Speaker 1: insane that this is even in the power of a

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Speaker 1: single man. And I just hate all of the fake

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Speaker 1: contrivance around who will now we have disci here's our protocols,

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Speaker 1: as if they won't just completely dispatch with them or

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Speaker 1: come up with some sort of tortured rationale for the

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Speaker 1: next time they take action against this account. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean all of the legalies and the quote unquote guardrails

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Speaker 1: that they put out here. It's just an attempt to

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Speaker 1: quiet critics who want Trump to remain off of Facebook.

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Speaker 1: They're trying to have it both ways, to try to

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Speaker 1: you know, the other piece that we shouldn't ignore here

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Speaker 1: is it's not just their assess men of like free

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Speaker 1: speech and potential you know, acts of violence. They've also

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Speaker 1: got a bottom line that they have to worry about.

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Speaker 1: And Donald Trump spends a lot of money on Facebook ads.

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Speaker 1: So I heard Roconomy at this point, and I think

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Speaker 1: it's a good one. It's not an accident that all

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Speaker 1: of these social media platforms and Facebook in particular, because

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Speaker 1: they probably got the most money from the Trump campaign,

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Speaker 1: Like the one year that they don't have them on

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Speaker 1: is the year that it happens too. He's happens to

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Speaker 1: be like irrelevant to the political process basically, and also

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Speaker 1: irrelevant in terms of their bottom line because he's not

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Speaker 1: wasn't running for anything. It was like the only year

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Speaker 1: since he popped up on the scene where he wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have been spending really money with them anyway, So it

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Speaker 1: was not any sort of loss to them. Well, now

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Speaker 1: that he's ramping up his campaign, well now there's some

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Speaker 1: money to lose, so that also has to weigh into

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Speaker 1: some of these decisions as well. But yeah, ultimately this

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Speaker 1: is all of oars. They will do with this account

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Speaker 1: what they decide. It is in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg.

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Speaker 1: He has previously concocted these sort of elaborate schemes to

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Speaker 1: try to distance himself and make it like there's this

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Speaker 1: Facebook Supreme Court and it's this independent board of arbitration. No,

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Speaker 1: it's up to him. He made the decision. He will

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Speaker 1: make the decision again. And all of this is just

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Speaker 1: an attempt to apply at critics, which of course won't work.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the people who won him off forever, they're

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Speaker 1: going to continue to want them off forever, and that's

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Speaker 1: not going to change, exactly. Correct. And Trump, to his credit,

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Speaker 1: actually into some of this. Put this up there on

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Speaker 1: the screen, he says, Facebook, which has lost billions of

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Speaker 1: dollars in values since deplatforming your favorite president me, has

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Speaker 1: just announced that they are reinstating my account. Such a

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Speaker 1: thing should never again happen to a sitting president or

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Speaker 1: anybody else which is not deserving of retribution. Thank you

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Speaker 1: to truth Social for doing such an incredible job. Your

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Speaker 1: growth is outstanding in future limited And I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: about that part, but I am sure definitely that they

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Speaker 1: did lose some money. And at the very least, look,

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Speaker 1: he's not wrong. I mean, in terms of the way

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Speaker 1: that we thought about these platforms, a lot of it

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Speaker 1: was destroyed in twenty seventeen with deplatforming and in general

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Speaker 1: really ramping up throughout those years. But the final act

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Speaker 1: really was Trump, And actually, when really think about it,

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Speaker 1: it was Trump in conjunction with Parlor. I still remain

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Speaker 1: that Parlor was one of the most dangerous and censorious

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Speaker 1: things that ever happened, because that was about the infrastructure

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Speaker 1: of web itself, like with Amazon Web Services and the

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Speaker 1: denial of servers that will literally allow a company to exist.

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Speaker 1: That is where things really kicked into high gear. And

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Speaker 1: I've done other monologues here since then about Andrew Tate.

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Speaker 1: You can hate Andrew Tate, but simultaneous deep platform across

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Speaker 1: the Internet, that's pretty insane. Kiwi Farms was another big one.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about d listing on Google like

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Speaker 1: that's then we're talking about the very like ability to

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Speaker 1: exist online. I'm not even saying I like any of

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Speaker 1: these places, but it's not about like, it's like, how

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Speaker 1: can this be in the hands of you know, of

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Speaker 1: Sindhar Pachai over at Google, of Tim Cook the removal

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Speaker 1: from the App Store that was another big one. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I believe Apple has, if not a majority, near majority

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Speaker 1: of control over cell phones in the United States. These

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Speaker 1: are all things where and this is the classic example

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Speaker 1: the phone company. The phone company doesn't care what you

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Speaker 1: say on the phone, right if you break the law

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Speaker 1: when you're on the phone, it's the government's job to

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Speaker 1: go and get in a subpoena and be like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: he's breaking the law while he's on the phone. It's

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Speaker 1: not AT and t's job to censor what you're saying

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Speaker 1: to somebody else in a private phone call. Now you

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Speaker 1: can say, yeah, but the Internet is different because you're

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Speaker 1: talking to everybody. But not really. I mean, when you

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Speaker 1: think about infrastructure, that's the whole point is the infrastructure

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Speaker 1: is supposed to be completely content neutral, and where we

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Speaker 1: escaped that on January eight, twenty twenty one. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think it's a little more complex than that, because

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Speaker 1: I've almost everybody agrees there should be some limits to

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Speaker 1: what people are able to say. I mean, threats of violence,

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Speaker 1: docks like, you know, outright harassment, revenge, porn like. There

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Speaker 1: are lines that I think society would want to draw,

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Speaker 1: and that we draw with the First Amendment as well.

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Speaker 1: But even a place like eight chan has some rules

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Speaker 1: around what you can and can't post. So that's where

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Speaker 1: things ultimately get complicated because then you have to ask.

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Speaker 1: It's not like a phone company, because you have to ask,

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Speaker 1: where do we draw that line? The problem is having

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Speaker 1: the power to decide where do we draw that line?

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Speaker 1: On something that ends up being really critical to our

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Speaker 1: democratic infrastructure in the hands of a very few people,

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Speaker 1: and it being a complete black box. I mean, before

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Speaker 1: the Twitter files came out, we really had no insight

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Speaker 1: into the internal process within Twitter, as one example for

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Speaker 1: how they came to this decision, and once we did

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Speaker 1: have some insight into how they came to that decision,

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Speaker 1: it was exactly as we suspected. It was completely ad hoc.

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Speaker 1: It was driven by a couple of ideological actors. It

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Speaker 1: was driven by, you know, external pressure and the sense

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Speaker 1: of employees at Twitter of like how the people around

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Speaker 1: them in their lives would judge them if they didn't

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Speaker 1: take action against these things. And so even though they

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Speaker 1: had these stated rules governing the platform, ultimately when push

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Speaker 1: came to shove, it just ended up being their own

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Speaker 1: personal decision making that led to the outcome of Trump

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Speaker 1: being banned from the platform. So, you know, that's that,

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Speaker 1: to me, is the core of the issue, and in

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Speaker 1: fact is quite relevant. We have a number of stories

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Speaker 1: in the show today about antitrust actions being taken the

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Speaker 1: attempt to curb and check some of the power of

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Speaker 1: big tech, which obviously is relevant in terms of censorship

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Speaker 1: but relevant in terms of all sorts of aspects of

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Speaker 1: our lives on and off the Internet, and it really

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Speaker 1: is the sort of crucial frontline battle of our time,

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Speaker 1: and one that you know, fortunately there is some some

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Speaker 1: genuine bipartisan bipartisanship on. There are plenty of people who

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Speaker 1: just posture, you know, plenty of Republicans who just want

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Speaker 1: to posture about the censorship. But then, like Jim Jordan,

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Speaker 1: ultimately all they're doing is like carrying water for the

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Speaker 1: tech companies. They don't actually care about the power piece.

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Speaker 1: If you're not focused on the power of these companies

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Speaker 1: when it comes not just to censorship, but all of

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Speaker 1: the activities that they engage in all of their impact

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Speaker 1: on public life, then ultimately you're not really serious about

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Speaker 1: this important point. We're going to table this discussion. We're

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Speaker 1: going to talk a lot more about about both the

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Speaker 1: Google lawsuit that the Department of Justice, the second Justice

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Speaker 1: Department lawsuit against that company, and all so about the

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Speaker 1: overall reaction to anti trust and how things are changing.

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Speaker 1: So let's go ahead and talk about Ukraine. That's what

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Speaker 1: we originally were going to start our show with before

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Speaker 1: the Trump news broke last night. There's a major Titanic

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Speaker 1: development here in Washington. The decision to send some dozen

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Speaker 1: two dozen or so M one Abrams tanks to Ukraine

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Speaker 1: on the battlefield in conjunction with Poland, with Finland, and

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Speaker 1: with Germany, and the departure of tanks from all of

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Speaker 1: these Western nations to try and help Ukraine in its

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Speaker 1: offensive in the coming months. President Biden making this announcement,

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Speaker 1: let's take a listen. Putin expected Europe and the United

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Speaker 1: States to weaken our resolve. He expected our support for

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Speaker 1: Ukraine to crumble with time. He was wrong. He was wrong.

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Speaker 1: He was wrong from the beginning, and he continues to

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Speaker 1: be wrong. We are united. America is united, and so

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Speaker 1: is the world. We approach the one year mark as

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Speaker 1: we do of the Russia full scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Speaker 1: We remain united and determined as and our conviction and

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Speaker 1: our cause. These tanks are further evidence of our enduring

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Speaker 1: an unflagging commitment to Ukraine and our confidence and the

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Speaker 1: skill of the Ukrainian forces. This is an important decision marker.

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Speaker 1: It was one that was never contemplated by the Pentagon,

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Speaker 1: by the Biden administration, and by Western officials, which changed

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Speaker 1: all within the last month. So let's go all the

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Speaker 1: way back. So, first, President Zelenski visits here in Washington.

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Speaker 1: One of the two main asks that he asked President Biden.

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Speaker 1: Number one was not just patriot missile system but more

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Speaker 1: patriot missile systems. Number two is tanks and jets. Now,

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Speaker 1: jets are off the table for now, but listen to

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Speaker 1: this story. Because the tanks were completely off the table.

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Speaker 1: Then what happens is that Poland has in possession some

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Speaker 1: Leopard tanks that were given to it by Germany. Poland says,

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Speaker 1: I want to give these tanks to Ukraine because of

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Speaker 1: repeated requests by President Zelenski. Well, then what happens what

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Speaker 1: they have to go to Germany because Germany is the

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Speaker 1: one who gave them the tanks. Germany says, no, We're

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Speaker 1: not going to give you those tanks, because then the

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Speaker 1: decision is on us to allow pole And to do it.

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Speaker 1: Chancellor Oloff Schultz says, the only way I'm giving these

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Speaker 1: tanks to Ukraine is if you give tanks to Ukraine,

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Speaker 1: because then it's a complete NATO decision, especially led by

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Speaker 1: the United States, and not one that lands in Germany.

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Speaker 1: Because Germany doesn't want to be the one that is

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Speaker 1: retaliated against by Russia if such an attack to happen.

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Speaker 1: They don't want to be out there on their own.

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Speaker 1: Not to cut you short, but just to insert a

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Speaker 1: little piece here. This is from politicos reporting about behind

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Speaker 1: the scenes negotiations. This should make everybody very uncomfortable. Schultz

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Speaker 1: was adamant in his discussions with Biden that's supplying Leopard

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Speaker 1: tanks to Ukraine marks such a qualitatively new step that

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Speaker 1: the US, as the world's biggest military power, but also

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Speaker 1: Germany's guarantee for nuclear deterrence, must be involved. They also

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Speaker 1: want to demonstrate unity toward Putin important to the Chancellor

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Speaker 1: from the very beginning that we take every step with

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Speaker 1: as much unity as possible, as spokespersons said. So they're

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Speaker 1: basically like, listen, we don't feel like our nuclear deterrence

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Speaker 1: is enough. We want the world superpower on our I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's how provocative they ultimately view this step, and they'd

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Speaker 1: really come to loggerheads because they're the military. In particular,

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Speaker 1: Pentagon really did not want to send these tanks, and

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Speaker 1: they put out there like, oh, it's because it's hard

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Speaker 1: to train on whatever. You No, they saw this as

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Speaker 1: a significant escalation. They also worry about our own readiness,

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Speaker 1: as we've been talking about as well. Biden was reluctant,

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Speaker 1: and effectively, Germany was under pressure and there was starting

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Speaker 1: to be this ugly split in the NATO alliance, and

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Speaker 1: Biden just caved and was like, all right, fine, Rather

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Speaker 1: than have any demonstration of disunity, we're just going to

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Speaker 1: go along with sending these tanks, something that they had

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Speaker 1: completely ruled out early in this conflict. Because remember, it's

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Speaker 1: easy to lose track of how these things all started.

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Speaker 1: The original thought and the original what was sold to

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Speaker 1: the American people, We will provide them whatever they need

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Speaker 1: for their defense. Tanks are a strictly offensive capability. So

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Speaker 1: this was previously like, you know, completely out of bounds,

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Speaker 1: and now here we are. Well. The reason it also

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Speaker 1: matters is the offensive itself. What is that offensive going

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Speaker 1: to look like? Where you can combine that with some

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Speaker 1: reporting that we brought to you all just a couple

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Speaker 1: of weeks ago about the US is warming to the

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Speaker 1: idea of Ukraine taking back Crimea. Now look, I have

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Speaker 1: no idea whether they even have that capability, And on

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Speaker 1: the tank piece, it's important, so I asked some of

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Speaker 1: my friends who work in the defense industry, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, all right, what's actually the deal with these tanks?

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Speaker 1: And they're like, look, we don't actually even know the

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Speaker 1: detail of the tank itself. The tank itself is a platform.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of technology that goes into the US tank.

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Speaker 1: There's in terms of the ones that we sell, we

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Speaker 1: sell them all over the world. Some of them are

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Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighties. Some of them you wouldn't like

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Speaker 1: a twenty twenty three Abrams tank versus nineteen eighty tank,

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Speaker 1: and twenty twenty three one is going to win every day,

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Speaker 1: even though they look kind of similar. So the point

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Speaker 1: is that that's actually unclear. They need to be specially

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Speaker 1: manufactured in the next couple of months by the US

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Speaker 1: defense industry. So congratulations to the makers here in Northern

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Speaker 1: Virginia who are going to be supplying those tanks. So

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Speaker 1: they're specially manufactured, they need to be trained on it.

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Speaker 1: There's an entire logistical pattern that needs to develop in

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Speaker 1: order to supply and keep up. These tanks are in

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Speaker 1: general pretty advanced pieces of technology, so that's a piece

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Speaker 1: of it. However, it was immediately noticed by Russia. Let's

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Speaker 1: put this up there on the screen. The city of

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Speaker 1: Kiev immediately under bombardment. That happened right after Kiev secured

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Speaker 1: the tanks. And the reason here is that the US

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Speaker 1: and Germany are sending these tanks. Immediately after this decision

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Speaker 1: was made, the strike happened on Kiev. So when we

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Speaker 1: put those two things together, clearly the Russians see it

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Speaker 1: as something. Now, how exactly are they going to respond?

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Speaker 1: We genuinely have no idea. I actually saw a really

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Speaker 1: troubling headline this morning in the New York Times. It

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Speaker 1: says that the Ukraine War or it says here's how

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Speaker 1: President Biden reluctantly agreed to send tanks to Ukraine. But

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Speaker 1: let me read you, guys the subhead It was just

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Speaker 1: this morning the decision unlocked a flow of heavy arms

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Speaker 1: from Europe and inched the United States and it's NATO

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Speaker 1: allies closer to direct conflict with Russia. That is a

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Speaker 1: that is literally, that's not me scaremongering or whatever. That's

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Speaker 1: from the Times, probably one of the most hawkish outlets

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Speaker 1: in this entire conflict. It also comes on the heels

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Speaker 1: of the Doomsday clock, the famous clock about how close

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Speaker 1: we are supposedly to nuclear war. Let's go ahead and

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Speaker 1: put this video up on the screen. I can speak

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Speaker 1: over it. From the Bureau of Atomic Scientists, they now

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Speaker 1: say we are set one hundred seconds or sorry, ninety

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Speaker 1: seconds to midnight, which is the closest to catastrophe that

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Speaker 1: we have ever been in the history of the Bulletin

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Speaker 1: of Atomic Scientists calling it, quote a global catastrophe. Look all,

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Speaker 1: we're trying. We're trying to approach this in a very

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Speaker 1: level headed way and not be skeptical. I'm even trying

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Speaker 1: not to let my bias come in here. When it's

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Speaker 1: Germany and I'm like, yeah, why don't you send them

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Speaker 1: the tanks. I'm like, you're the one who's only like

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Speaker 1: a couple hundred miles from there. It's your country, You're

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Speaker 1: a continent. Why do we have to be the ones

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Speaker 1: to do it. The reason why I think that this

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Speaker 1: is significant and was regarded as such by President Biden,

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Speaker 1: by General Mark Milly, by the Navy Secretary who said

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Speaker 1: that we're going to have to start cannibalizing our own

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Speaker 1: supplies if we continue to have to supply Ukraine, is

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Speaker 1: that this could change the entire ballgame on the battlefield,

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Speaker 1: because look at what happened with Russia. Russia's armored carriers

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Speaker 1: and everything is breaking down, their global infrat or their infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: military supply chain disaster. That's why they're so reliant on

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Speaker 1: railroads like it's World War Two. They don't have the

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Speaker 1: upkeep Ukraine capturing many of these things, and it was

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Speaker 1: one of the ways that they were able to cripple

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Speaker 1: the Russian offensive in the first place. Well, now, if

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Speaker 1: they have sophisticated Western technology that can out match Russia

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Speaker 1: on the battlefield, we're not talking just about breakthroughs, but

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Speaker 1: you don't know where that's going to stop. And let's

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Speaker 1: say that it stops in Crimea. Now what we're actually

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Speaker 1: a completely different strategic situation. I'm not even saying I

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Speaker 1: think Russia will should have Crimea. But what we're saying

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Speaker 1: is they think they should have Crimea and they have nukes.

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Speaker 1: So what does that mean? Now? According to The Times,

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Speaker 1: President Biden his advisors believe that the risk of the

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Speaker 1: tactical nuclear weapon being used in Ukraine has gone down.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean? I don't know. You know, the

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Speaker 1: risk of everything seems to go down until it goes

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Speaker 1: way up whenever the strategic situation changes, right, I Mean,

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Speaker 1: they're logic here seems to be like, well, they haven't

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Speaker 1: nuked us yet, so should be fine. Like I guess

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Speaker 1: they're just not going to. And I do think it's

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Speaker 1: a real myth the idea that Russia has not escalated

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Speaker 1: in response to some of the actions that we have

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Speaker 1: taken with regard to Ukraine. They did escalate. Now they

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Speaker 1: didn't escalate to nuclear war yet, but they did escalate

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Speaker 1: in terms of going back to attacking, keep going to

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Speaker 1: attacking the energy infrastructure to try to make this winter

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Speaker 1: as brutal and painful as Ukrainians as they possibly can. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, they ultimately went forward with the draft, and

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Speaker 1: there's rumors that they may do another round of conscription domestically.

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Speaker 1: So I think even this mythology that Russia didn't respond,

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Speaker 1: that there was no escalation is just factually inaccurate. And

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Speaker 1: it also, as I said before, it reminds me of

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Speaker 1: some of the conversations that came out in the WikiLeaks

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Speaker 1: cables that were revealed by Bronco marcitic He talked about

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Speaker 1: how there were a lot of people said all the

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Speaker 1: Russians always say that about Ukraine and NATO and they

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Speaker 1: never really do anything. So the fact that they didn't

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Speaker 1: act instantly was taken as proof that like they're all

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Speaker 1: blust or they're not ultimately going to move forward. That

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Speaker 1: turned out to not be correct in reality. It was

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Speaker 1: a red line for them in a reality. In reality,

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Speaker 1: and this again bonus and burden and culpability fully on

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Speaker 1: Putin and the Kremlin, etc. But they had drawn a

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Speaker 1: red line, we ignored it, and that is part of

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Speaker 1: the context of how we ended up ultimately in this place.

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Speaker 1: And I just see a lot of echoes of that here.

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Speaker 1: And the last thing that I'll put in here is,

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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of what they're trying to sell

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Speaker 1: to the process, like, oh, well, this was all about

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Speaker 1: unity with NATO and unity with Germany, and you heard

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Speaker 1: that in the president's comments. There was a line though,

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Speaker 1: in that Politico piece that just came out of the

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Speaker 1: like inside story or whatever that really stuck out to

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Speaker 1: me too, because part of the debate before they decided

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Speaker 1: whether or not to send these tanks was about the

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Speaker 1: capability of the tanks. If it really made sense in

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Speaker 1: this context, some of the drawbacks of this particular type

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Speaker 1: of tank and apparently, according to Politico, you'll love this.

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Speaker 1: Those comments frustrated defense industry executives who felt the Pentagon

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Speaker 1: was making disparaging remarks about US manufactured equipment. Weeks before,

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Speaker 1: Laura Cooper, Pentagon official charge with overseeing Ukraine policy, had

431
00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:26,719
Speaker 1: called the Abrams tanks a gas guzzler. The US does

432
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:29,560
Speaker 1: not have to advocate for sending the Abrams, when industry

433
00:21:29,600 --> 00:21:33,560
Speaker 1: insider said, but administration officials shouldn't criticize the tank. That's

434
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,320
Speaker 1: especially true since another country in the region, Poland, is

435
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 1: buying em once from General Dynamics. Other countries like Morocco, Iraq, Australia, Sauta, Arabia,

436
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,400
Speaker 1: and Egypt have purchased export versions of the tank as well.

437
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:47,960
Speaker 1: So they were also deeply concerned that this was impacting

438
00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:50,680
Speaker 1: their bottom line and ability to sell weapons around the world.

439
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:53,480
Speaker 1: So they're putting pressure on the administration to make this

440
00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:55,919
Speaker 1: decision from their own bottom line perspectives. One of the

441
00:21:55,960 --> 00:21:57,960
Speaker 1: reasons why I think this again is so important is

442
00:21:58,000 --> 00:21:59,400
Speaker 1: they don't know how to make these tanks. They don't

443
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:00,760
Speaker 1: know how to do anything, and they don't have the

444
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:02,520
Speaker 1: money to buy them. That means that we're on the

445
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:06,199
Speaker 1: hook forever. Like a real nation, whenever it mounts a defense,

446
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:09,320
Speaker 1: it has an industrial base, it has an economy, it

447
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:12,399
Speaker 1: has a populace that is capable of mounting that singular defense,

448
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:15,359
Speaker 1: sometimes with allies, but not wholly reliant on them in

449
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,399
Speaker 1: order to mount it and defend its sovereignty. Ukraine has

450
00:22:18,520 --> 00:22:20,719
Speaker 1: none of that. I mean they would not they wouldn't

451
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,399
Speaker 1: even deny it without NATO. In the Western countries, they

452
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: failed to exist in a single moment. If we cut

453
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:28,439
Speaker 1: them off on ammunition, they're dead. It's over. And so

454
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:31,199
Speaker 1: when does it end? Like what does the actual an

455
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 1: period look? Because even if they push Russia out, what

456
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:35,359
Speaker 1: are they going to do? Then they'll say, if you

457
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:37,520
Speaker 1: don't continue to get us all these things, then they're

458
00:22:37,560 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 1: just going to come back. Yeah, so are what are

459
00:22:39,040 --> 00:22:40,920
Speaker 1: we on the hook for fifty one hundred billion a

460
00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:44,000
Speaker 1: year for every single year going forward? And I really

461
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:46,600
Speaker 1: cannot let the Europeans off the hook. This is Libya

462
00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: all over again. They're the ones who d I'm quoting

463
00:22:49,920 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: Susan Rice, who herself was a complete hawk, who said, too,

464
00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: this is all in the transcript. You're not going to

465
00:22:57,480 --> 00:23:01,440
Speaker 1: drag us into your shitty war in They didn't. Obama

466
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: did not want to go into Libya. It's the Germans

467
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:05,399
Speaker 1: and the French who were like, no, we got to

468
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:08,160
Speaker 1: do it for human rights, all this stuff. Oh look

469
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 1: at Benghazi, Gadafi, all this, and then now what's happening

470
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,399
Speaker 1: in Libya right now? They're literal slave markets that are

471
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,359
Speaker 1: over there. And ask the people who live in a

472
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:19,880
Speaker 1: literal like anarchy whether they prefer then or now. I'm

473
00:23:19,920 --> 00:23:21,640
Speaker 1: not saying Goadafi was a good guy, but the point

474
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:23,720
Speaker 1: is like, should we have been the ones who determined

475
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:25,639
Speaker 1: exactly what was going on there? Is all during the

476
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:27,879
Speaker 1: promise of the Arab Spring? It was only ten what

477
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,639
Speaker 1: ten years ago that that happened, Like, how do we

478
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: have collective amnesian I think it should scare everybody that

479
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,199
Speaker 1: they were not willing to do it without the burden

480
00:23:36,320 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: on us, because listen, we're all in it now and

481
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:42,479
Speaker 1: we don't have any says. And this is also why

482
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 1: I was always advocating for the Congress to step up

483
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:50,359
Speaker 1: to its constitutional responsibility and to write strategic provisions in

484
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:53,159
Speaker 1: the arms that are given to Ukraine and define the

485
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: exact platforms and to take it out of the executive hand.

486
00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: Biden is an eighty year old man. He could drop

487
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,960
Speaker 1: dead tomorrow. Or the policy of the United States then

488
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: is all in the hands of Kamala Harris. Are we

489
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: comfortable with that? Are you comfortable with that? Like take

490
00:24:07,560 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 1: away even the nuke button? Look at this. This is

491
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: the extraordinary amount of responsibility that they have abdicated. I

492
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:15,640
Speaker 1: think it's really important. And again, let's s the next

493
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 1: one up on the screen. It just shows you that

494
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 1: this was just a couple days ago. Top US officials

495
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: don't want to give Ukraine tanks despite German pressure five

496
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:26,679
Speaker 1: days ago. That's how quickly that we fold. And it

497
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 1: shows you the power of the Ukraine lobby here in

498
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,800
Speaker 1: the United States. All right, let's go to the next

499
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 1: one here because this is also important in terms of Ukraine.

500
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 1: What's happening. Basically, let's put it up on the screen.

501
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:42,239
Speaker 1: Zelenski fired nine of his top officials after reports that

502
00:24:42,359 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: members of his government went on vacation to Spain and

503
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: France and took bribes during the war. These are the

504
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 1: senior most officials in the top Ukrainian government who have

505
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: been fired actually during the war. So let's look at

506
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:00,680
Speaker 1: who these people are four deputy men misters in the

507
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: Ukrainian government, including five regional governors, were sacked by the

508
00:25:05,040 --> 00:25:09,399
Speaker 1: Ukrainian cabinet. This was on Tuesday. The prosecutor Deputy prosecutor

509
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:13,639
Speaker 1: General also announced his resignation as a result of this,

510
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: and it was because of internal investigations showing that some

511
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: of them were going on lavish vacations using a Mercedes

512
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 1: owned by a prominent Ukrainian businessman. A spokesperson for the

513
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: Ukrainian Border Guard was maligned for partying in Paris as

514
00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:36,680
Speaker 1: the war continued in Eastern Ukraine. Zelenski painted this as

515
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 1: an anti corruption move. This is also after they talk

516
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 1: about how the apparently the former deputy Defense minister resigned

517
00:25:45,520 --> 00:25:48,800
Speaker 1: after the papers reported that he had purchased food for

518
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: the military at prices inflated two or three times higher

519
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: than what was actually in the grocery store, spending some

520
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:02,719
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty million dollars on food. Now, let

521
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:05,239
Speaker 1: me ask you who's dollars do you think that is?

522
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: Because there is no such thing as Ukrainian economy right now,

523
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: we are backstopping everything. So congratulations, American taxpayer, you're the

524
00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: ones who paid. Yeah, you've funded these all expenses paid

525
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 1: vacations to Paris, Spain and wherever else. So way to go. Yeah, yeah,

526
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: I mean this is one of the key things that

527
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: the media has really gas led us on. Up until

528
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: Russia's invasion of Ukraine, there was all kinds of reporting

529
00:26:31,119 --> 00:26:32,760
Speaker 1: and you were allowed to say, this is a nation

530
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: that struggles with corruption. Yeah, the most oft entry in Europe,

531
00:26:35,680 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: very corrupt nation. Okay, the minute that this happened, you

532
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: were not allowed to say that anymore. That's why they

533
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: deserve to be invaded, right, yes, of course, of course.

534
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: But the reason that that became out of bounds in

535
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,280
Speaker 1: terms of you know, commenting on whatsoever, is because then

536
00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:55,640
Speaker 1: that naturally raises questions in the minds of the American people. Okay, well,

537
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: what are we sending them and where's it going? And

538
00:26:57,560 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: maybe let's have like an inspector general to keep track

539
00:26:59,880 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: of where the weapons are going and with the money

540
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:04,399
Speaker 1: is funding, et cetera, et cetera. But that was that

541
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,800
Speaker 1: was out of bounds. You couldn't ask those questions, and

542
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:10,399
Speaker 1: so it was important to just pretend like Ukraine was

543
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: this pristine beacon of democracy. And again, the fact that

544
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 1: they had struggle with corruption, as you know, many nations

545
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,360
Speaker 1: around the world do, including our own. Doesn't mean they

546
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: deserve to be invaded, doesn't mean that they were like

547
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: you know, it's their fault, or that Russia has a

548
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: point or any of that. But it should have been

549
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,879
Speaker 1: always part of the context to inform the debate, debate

550
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:36,679
Speaker 1: here domestically about what we wanted to do and how

551
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 1: we wanted to do it. Instead, you know, Rand Paul's

552
00:27:40,040 --> 00:27:42,600
Speaker 1: very reasonable proposal, Hey, let's have an inspector general to

553
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: watch over where these funds are going and where these

554
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:49,160
Speaker 1: weapons are going, was completely voted down and dismissed as unreasonable. Yeah, exactly. Look,

555
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:50,880
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, is it too much to ask

556
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 1: if you're going to give somebody a hundred billion, is

557
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: it at least being spent on you know, Like, who

558
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,720
Speaker 1: do I feel for the most in this whole situation,

559
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: actual Ukrainian people and soldiers. I mean, listen, one of

560
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: the crazy things about warfare in the twenty first century

561
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 1: is and I remember this during Syria, and I remember

562
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: now you can watch some of these videos of guys

563
00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 1: getting ambushed on the front line, both Russian and Ukraine.

564
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:14,919
Speaker 1: It is terrifying, and it just shows you too. Like

565
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 1: look war, for all the talk of tech, a lot

566
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:20,119
Speaker 1: of it is just two guys in a hole, and

567
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: some of it comes down to like horrific hand to

568
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: hand combat with bullets, and it is terrible. And you

569
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: know the idea, I think a lot of us can

570
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: take pride and it's like, all right, you know, these

571
00:28:28,560 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: guys are fighting for the defense, they got weapons in

572
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: their hands, and they're standing up to try and do

573
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 1: something about it. But at least you want to make

574
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: sure that that's actually happening, not that the rations that

575
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: they're eating have been horrifically overpaid for by the American

576
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 1: taxpayer so that some guy in Ukraine can take a

577
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: vacation in Paris. That starts to really piss me off.

578
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of people should be really

579
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,440
Speaker 1: pissed off about what's going on there. And the fact

580
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: is it's like look, in terms of the Western media, nothing,

581
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:00,920
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, absolutely, no reporting. No, it's hard to

582
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 1: find all these like vacations and whatever that we're apparently

583
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: going on that Ukrainian government knew about. There was no

584
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 1: reporting on that. I have to go to like Ukrainian

585
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: sources or Russian sources and use the translate thing and

586
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: be like all right, well I think that's what's actually

587
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: going on here, and it's like all right, And this

588
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: is also why, like do I know what's happening? The

589
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: presumption that any of us know what's actually happening in

590
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: Ukraine it's a farce, Like almost everything that you see

591
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: in front of you, unless it's literal ravity. Even then

592
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, even in terms of questionable what they're

593
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: bringing out and whether the translation is correct, it is,

594
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 1: it shows you the difficulty that we face here and

595
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,360
Speaker 1: trying to give people a fullsome picture of what's going on.

596
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: But anyway, I think it's an important story. It's something

597
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: that you got to track. I mean, Selenski's a guy,

598
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: he's cracked on media, he's fired or does banned some

599
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:52,960
Speaker 1: opposition parties that were actually in Ukraine. In terms of

600
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: the people he's replacing, I mean, who knows, like whether

601
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: those people are good or not? Are they corrupt in

602
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: the right way? That's always a real question. The bribes, etc.

603
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: I've done my best to try so. For example, they

604
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: talk about the bribe Mike, well, who bribed him? You know,

605
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: I'm looking into it. Some one of these deputy ministers

606
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,239
Speaker 1: takes a four hundred thousand dollars, but nobody's naming the bribe. Mike, well,

607
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: who is is it Russia? Is it Eastern Europe? Like,

608
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 1: where's the money coming from? None of that is open

609
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:20,880
Speaker 1: in their board. We're going to stay on this because

610
00:30:20,880 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: I actually do think it is really important. Yeah, and

611
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: just one more piece on you know, the incomplete picture

612
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: and the lack of questioning that we get from the

613
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 1: Western press. Year. There's some real questions about exactly what

614
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: happened with regards to this apartment block that was hit

615
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,520
Speaker 1: with a missile, devastating attack on civilians there. Yeah, and

616
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: you know, the Western press reported very definitively and conclusively

617
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: that this was definitely a Russian missile strike. Well, go

618
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 1: ahead and put this up on the screen. A Ukrainian

619
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: advisor actually suggested that it was not a Russian missile

620
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: which hit that building, but that it was a Ukrainian

621
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: attempt to disrupt that missile that ended up incidentally hitting

622
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 1: this building. And Zelenski himself made some comments at the

623
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: World Economic Form that seemed to suggest that was also

624
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:16,080
Speaker 1: a possibility. But this advisor resigned, apologized over the comments

625
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: and Listen. I don't know what the reality is of

626
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: what happened here with this apartment block, but I do

627
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:24,719
Speaker 1: know that there should be some curiosity in the press.

628
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: Now listen. Ultimately, right, if Russia wasn't firing on this area,

629
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: then this catastrophe wouldn't have happened. So, yes, still Russia

630
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 1: is to blame. But there's a qualitative difference between Russia

631
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,479
Speaker 1: was trying to hit and you know, energy block and

632
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: ends up you know, the Ukrainians and trying to disrupt

633
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: that missile ends up with these casualties on the apartment building.

634
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: That's a very different portrait being painted of this war

635
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: versus Russia intentionally targeting civilians in an apartment right, Well,

636
00:31:51,480 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: we have no idea. Again, I have no clue. Guess

637
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: what I know. The Ukrainians lied and they said that

638
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: it was Russia that fired on Pole, that accidentally hit

639
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:01,200
Speaker 1: those guys in Pole and kill two people, when it

640
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: was actually adamant, right, they were adamant. They didn't admit

641
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:07,000
Speaker 1: it until we straight up had the forensic proof, and

642
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: then even then they're like, oh, yeah, show is the proof,

643
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: and they probably still deny it to this day. I

644
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: guess we're all just not supposed to talk about that.

645
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 1: Do I put it past Russia to hit civilians and

646
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:16,920
Speaker 1: kill them? No? Absolutely not. Of course, of course, you

647
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,560
Speaker 1: know why would we especially maybe it wasn't intentional, Maybe

648
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 1: they're just guided systems or shit, which is also sad

649
00:32:22,680 --> 00:32:25,640
Speaker 1: at war. We know this actually in terms of them

650
00:32:25,680 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: hit they like try to hit a bridge and they

651
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:28,960
Speaker 1: end up hitting a park. I mean, you know, they've

652
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: hit several civilians. This is part of the problem, which

653
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: is you know, you shouldn't put anybody in a pedestal.

654
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: Nobody is you know, the hagiography of Ukraine is exactly

655
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 1: what makes it so difficult to ask questions. But I'm optimistic. Look,

656
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: we're a year into this thing, and I'm not saying

657
00:32:42,360 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: this tanks and all this stuff doesn't worry me. But

658
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 1: people are asking more questions today than ever before, and

659
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: one day we will get a real account, just like

660
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: we did with Libya, just like we did with Iraq.

661
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: And just remember what it was like in two thousand

662
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: and three if this show had been on the air

663
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: and we've been saying what we were saying, what we

664
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:01,640
Speaker 1: believed about Iraq, and then a year later you're totally

665
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: and completely vindicated. So well, let me just say to

666
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: offer the administration's perspective, what they would say back to

667
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: us about the tanks in particular, is this is an

668
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 1: all in an attempt to really strengthen the Ukrainian hands

669
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: so they're in a better position to sit down at

670
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: the table for Nego ultimately. But like you could make

671
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:23,400
Speaker 1: that argument indefinitely, right, But that's that's ultimately the case

672
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 1: that they would put forward. All right, let's move on

673
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: to American's America's Congressman George Santos aka Anthony Divalder aka Katara.

674
00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: This is a big deal. I mean, listen, all the

675
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: lies and the like insanity of him claiming he's on

676
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 1: the volleyball team, and the video of him as a

677
00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: drag queen and all of that stuff is you know, interesting, uh,

678
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 1: And obviously I've been really fascinated by it. But the

679
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: key question here has always been where did that money

680
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:56,000
Speaker 1: come from that you put into your campaign, buddy, hundreds

681
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars, when there is no real track

682
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 1: record of this business that you claim you ran doing,

683
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: any sort of you know, actual business. It appears that

684
00:34:06,800 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: up until very recently you had very little funds to

685
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,239
Speaker 1: your name. You were getting kicked out of apartments. You

686
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: reported I think a fifty five thousand dollars income the

687
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:17,160
Speaker 1: last time you ran from Congress. So how did you

688
00:34:17,200 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: suddenly have this big change of fortunes where now you're

689
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:22,959
Speaker 1: putting in seven hundred k to your own campaign. Well,

690
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: the Santos campaign has now just filed an amended financial disclosure.

691
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:31,879
Speaker 1: This was with regard to their campaign expenditures. It's got

692
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: to put this up on the screen. From Daily Beast.

693
00:34:34,120 --> 00:34:38,920
Speaker 1: Late Tuesday afternoon, Santos afternoon, Santos's political operation filed a

694
00:34:39,000 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 1: flurry of amended campaign finance reports, telling the FEDS, among

695
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: other things, that a five hundred thousand dollars loon he

696
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: gave to his campaign did not in fact come from

697
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: his personal funds as he previously claimed. However, while the

698
00:34:54,960 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 1: newly amended filing told us where the funds did not

699
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: come from, it also raised a new question where did

700
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:02,720
Speaker 1: the money come from. While both the old new campaign

701
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: filings claimed that the loans came quote from the candidate,

702
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 1: the most recent amended filing had ticked the box for

703
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 1: personal funds of the candidate, And on this new amended filing,

704
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: that box is unchecked, so they are no longer claiming

705
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 1: that this was personal funds of the candidate, So they're

706
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: saying that it came from the candidate, but not from

707
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 1: the personal funds of the candidate, which raises a whole

708
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: slew of questions. Then again, where did the money come from?

709
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: And effectively the only legal answer to that would be

710
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: is if he got like a bank loan, you know

711
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:43,240
Speaker 1: that then proceeds go into his account and he uses

712
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 1: that bank loan to fund his campaign. That is from

713
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:50,920
Speaker 1: what I read from other you know, campaign finance experts,

714
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 1: et cetera. That is effectively the only legal answer to

715
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: that question given these new revelations. And by the way,

716
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,640
Speaker 1: there was another one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars

717
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: loan that they made the same change to unchecking that

718
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,399
Speaker 1: box saying that it came from the candidate's personal funds. Yeah.

719
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 1: I really believe that this will be the downfall of

720
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 1: Santos more than anything, just because it's you said, You're like, look,

721
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 1: as long as you follow the rules, we have one

722
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,399
Speaker 1: of the most corrupt campaign finance laws in the entire world.

723
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: But if you don't follow the rules, you are going

724
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: to jail. Like it's like denetch deesuza right, Like one

725
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: straw donation, that's it, you know, welcome to the federal penitentiary.

726
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: That's part of the reason why I think SBF is

727
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:33,120
Speaker 1: screen even if he was not guilty of wirefraud, which

728
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: I really allegedly but do believe that he is. It's like,

729
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:40,200
Speaker 1: if he they can prove even one straw donation, they'd

730
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:43,720
Speaker 1: have you the Feds. You're done. FEC violation is actually

731
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: not hard to prove. It's part of the reasons why

732
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,800
Speaker 1: campaign spends so much time, energy and more investing and

733
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: making sure they at least do follow the limited rules

734
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: and at least go around the loopholes with five oh

735
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 1: one c threes and fours right and all this. You

736
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 1: got to know the way to work the loop right,

737
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:59,439
Speaker 1: But he didn't do right. You can do whatever you want,

738
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:01,479
Speaker 1: but you have to do it in the right way

739
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: or else. Yeah, your face in prison time. And he

740
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:06,320
Speaker 1: doesn't appear to I mean, look like you said, unless

741
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:08,239
Speaker 1: he straight up took a bank loan. And who the

742
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: hell is going to give Anthony divald or George Santos,

743
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: a proven Ponzi schemer fell in whatever criminal history. Who's

744
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 1: gonna give him a five hour, thousand dollars bank loan

745
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: like it's maybe, Or but if he took it from

746
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,640
Speaker 1: somebody and reported it as personal, that's it. I mean, look,

747
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 1: you could try and revise the filing in but in

748
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: the past, but you know, lying to the FBC is

749
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: a very serious crime. Yeah, I very much think that

750
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: this is gonna this is going to go down. I

751
00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:39,120
Speaker 1: agree with you. I don't see how he gets out

752
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: of this one or how he comes up with any

753
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: sort of explanation that really makes sense, which is why

754
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: I mean, this new filing is just honestly bizarre. Just

755
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:50,279
Speaker 1: to remind you of what he had said previously. Previously

756
00:37:50,360 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 1: it's said that this was quote money I paid myself

757
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,839
Speaker 1: through the Devulter organization. He had confirmed to The Daily

758
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: Beast last month that he withdrew money from his firm

759
00:38:00,520 --> 00:38:03,480
Speaker 1: specifically to underwrite his campaign, reasoning he was the firm's

760
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: sole owner. It was actually an LLC, not a sole proprietorship.

761
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: But you know that you could you could maybe see

762
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 1: if he was earning a bunch of cash into this

763
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: company that is his company, and then he takes it

764
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:17,720
Speaker 1: in salary, which is kind of what he had claimed before,

765
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 1: and then uses a big chunk of that to fund

766
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:22,720
Speaker 1: the campaign. You may say, like, well, that wasn't really

767
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: that wise, given that you don't seem to have that

768
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 1: many other funds. But okay, it may technically be legal

769
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: now though if you're saying this wasn't actually your your

770
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: money that you were putting in. Again, the only legal

771
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: answer to what's going on here is that he got

772
00:38:40,080 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: some kind of a bank loan. It can't have it

773
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: can't have been you know, just passed through from some

774
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,239
Speaker 1: other rich person like that is not that is not

775
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,800
Speaker 1: going to pass muster. So he's under a lot of

776
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 1: scrutiny there. At the same time, you know, we've been

777
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:57,240
Speaker 1: covering the fact that he has now been caught involved

778
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:01,359
Speaker 1: with what the SEC Securities Exchange commiss is accusing of

779
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: being a Ponzi scheme and appeers based on the indictment

780
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 1: that I read of very much being a Ponzi scheme.

781
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: Washington Post has new reporting on how Santos operated within

782
00:39:11,600 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: this Ponzi scheme, the way that he worked to try

783
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,320
Speaker 1: to draw investors in, and it is really fascinating. I

784
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:19,319
Speaker 1: don't know if you guys watch that inventing Anna about

785
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: Anna Deelvey, This like supposed this woman who portrayed herself

786
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: as a German heiress and like really fooled a bunch

787
00:39:24,719 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: of people in New York City, like almost got away

788
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:28,960
Speaker 1: with the whole scheme. There are a lot of Anna

789
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: Delviy vibes contained in this Washington Post article. Is going

790
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 1: and put this up on the screen. The headline here is,

791
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: I felt like we were in Goodfellas. How George Santos

792
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: would investors for an alleged Ponzi scheme. They open this

793
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: article with a sort of like dramatic, dramatic description of

794
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:53,440
Speaker 1: him bringing in investors to this restaurant, one of the

795
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: restaurants that he spent like tens of thousands of dollars in,

796
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 1: by the way, in his campaign finance reports, and would

797
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 1: pitch them and over multi course elaborate meals. Really sort

798
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 1: of portrayed himself like he was this very wealthy, high

799
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 1: up individual that he was hobnobbing with elites in the city.

800
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:13,960
Speaker 1: Which again, if you watch the Anadelvi thing, like that

801
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 1: was her whole thing. It's just if you project that

802
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: you are that and you have the right people around you,

803
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:22,239
Speaker 1: other elites will basically buy into this mythology that you're

804
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 1: creating about yourself. So here's some of the details they

805
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: say in internal Harbor City meetings. That's name of the

806
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 1: Pazzi scheme. Santos refined his pitch braasily, offering stories he

807
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 1: said he could tell investors to demonstrate his credentials or

808
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:38,360
Speaker 1: lighten the mood. According to zoom recordings that the Post obtained,

809
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: some of the tales were self deprecating, but they delivered

810
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 1: the same message that he operated in the orbit of

811
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: the rich and powerful. For example, he told this story

812
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:51,280
Speaker 1: about I think it was the Blackstone CEO that Santos

813
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: was in a meeting with him and fell over a

814
00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 1: table or something like that. So again it was like

815
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,239
Speaker 1: self deprecating, but it was like a humble brag. The

816
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 1: bottom line of this story was, these are the sorts

817
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:03,399
Speaker 1: of people that I'm friends with, These are the sorts

818
00:41:03,400 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: of people I know. Of course, is all completely completely

819
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: made up. They also talk about the way that this

820
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: the staff at this restaurant, which again he spent thirty

821
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: thousand dollars on in his campaign. According to his reports,

822
00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:21,359
Speaker 1: they would welcome him and his clients he would order

823
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:24,360
Speaker 1: dish after dish, and one of the people that was

824
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: involved said it really made her worry that he was

825
00:41:26,680 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: trying to fleece this person that she had put him

826
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: in touch with, and she said, I was so pissed.

827
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: He did this nice show and dance. Everyone at the

828
00:41:33,640 --> 00:41:35,880
Speaker 1: restaurant knew it. It felt like this was a routine

829
00:41:35,920 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: he did, like this was not the first time. So

830
00:41:39,719 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 1: also raises some questions there about whether he was using

831
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:46,760
Speaker 1: the campaign funds in order to finance these elaborate dinners

832
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:48,960
Speaker 1: that he was using to try to pitch people on

833
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: a Ponzi scheme. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I've also

834
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: been fascinated by schemers. I've really just gone back to

835
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,680
Speaker 1: the case of made Off. Madeoff was also a genius

836
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:01,240
Speaker 1: exactly in this regard, in that even when he needed

837
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: money desperately. One time he was like two hundred million

838
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:06,160
Speaker 1: in a hole and some guy came up to him

839
00:42:06,239 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: was like, Bernie, I want to give you one hundred million.

840
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 1: He's like, that's not going to cut it. And at

841
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 1: a gala and you know, they're talking and he's like, well,

842
00:42:13,040 --> 00:42:15,440
Speaker 1: what do I He's like, I've got longtime clients I'm sorry,

843
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 1: I can't do it. For for me to do it,

844
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 1: I'd have to put somebody away. And he's like, okay,

845
00:42:21,160 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: two hundred million. He's like, no, no way, I'm sorry.

846
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 1: That's just not going to do it. He goes to

847
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: two fifty, which is exactly what Bernie needs. He needs

848
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,640
Speaker 1: it in order to make his next withdrawal for one

849
00:42:29,680 --> 00:42:31,759
Speaker 1: of his clients. He said, nah. He works him all

850
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:34,000
Speaker 1: the way up to four hundred million, and he's like,

851
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,399
Speaker 1: all right, I guess I could make that work. And

852
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: that it worked, I mean, that's there. It's like you

853
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:42,720
Speaker 1: read about it and you're like, that's just the craasiness

854
00:42:42,400 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: of the lack of shame. I just can't. If he

855
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:47,479
Speaker 1: doesn't get this money around it, it collapses, the whole

856
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: scheme collapses unless he gets that money today. It ended

857
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: up collapsing like a couple of months later. But I mean,

858
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 1: you know, I don't have that in me, man I.

859
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: Whatever that is, it's a rare, rare quality, and it

860
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: auto select for the Bernie maid offs for the rare quality.

861
00:43:02,760 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: He doesn't feel ever right now, I don't know. It's

862
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,000
Speaker 1: a rare quality. It's an amazing story. There's actually a

863
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 1: movie on it where they dramatize that scene on HBO

864
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 1: called Wizard of Lies. I gotta watch that. That is incredible.

865
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I really have been obsessed with

866
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 1: this story, not even so much like the political implications whatever,

867
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:23,879
Speaker 1: Like politicians lie, We get it. You know, this guy

868
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: part of why a lot of people feel like there's

869
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 1: extra scrutiny on him or something because he's a Republican.

870
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell you, I mean, I think anyone

871
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:36,959
Speaker 1: who lied this brazenly and just invented these personas, there's

872
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: just a public fascination with the way that you can

873
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:45,799
Speaker 1: navigate through the world making up elaborate lie after elaborate lie.

874
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:50,319
Speaker 1: And you know, ultimately he did. He did trick a

875
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 1: lot of supposedly sophisticated people. You know, even with this

876
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: Ponzi scheme, tricked at least some number of supposedly sophisticated

877
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: investors to get in on this thing, tricked a lot

878
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,879
Speaker 1: of Republican elites. A least Dephonic apparently was a big

879
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: sort of patron of his and sort of reviving his

880
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:12,359
Speaker 1: congressional campaign after some opposition. Some internal research that they

881
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,160
Speaker 1: had done revealed some of this stuff and a bunch

882
00:44:14,200 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: of his campaign staff fled. Well she's the one that

883
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: comes back in and her consultant gets on board, and

884
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,200
Speaker 1: that kind of enabled him to continue in this race

885
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 1: in the way that he did and ultimately win it.

886
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,719
Speaker 1: So that's the part that is really fascinating to me,

887
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 1: is like the psychology, what it says about the holes

888
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:30,839
Speaker 1: in our political system, what it says about like what

889
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:33,319
Speaker 1: people are vulnerable to in terms of the stories that

890
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: get told. So it is remarkable, that's what it is.

891
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:44,360
Speaker 1: Another fraudster, Brett Barv former you know, NFL Hall of

892
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: Fame quarterback, etcetera, etcetera. So we dug deep into this

893
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: story because it truly, truly is shocking. And just to

894
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:53,840
Speaker 1: remind you of some of the details, I did a

895
00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: long monologue on this if you want to go back

896
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: and review all of the nitty gritty details. Bottom line,

897
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:03,280
Speaker 1: Brett Farv was involved in a scheme to steal millions

898
00:45:03,560 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 1: of dollars from Mississippi's welfare fund. This is money that

899
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:10,920
Speaker 1: is supposed to go to poor people in a state

900
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: where you have a lot of poor people. Number one

901
00:45:12,719 --> 00:45:16,279
Speaker 1: and number two, where they are so stingy with distributing

902
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 1: this money. It's almost like there is no welfare system

903
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 1: in the state of Mississippi. Instead, multi multimillionaires like Brett

904
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: farre were like pigs at the trough for this thing.

905
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 1: He alleges no wrongdoing and I had no idea what

906
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: was going on for the lawyers. Let me just put

907
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 1: this out there. Well, the Mississippi Auditor is speaking out

908
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:39,919
Speaker 1: in a new interview on HBO talking about how this

909
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 1: was the largest public fraud case in the history of

910
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:46,799
Speaker 1: the state. And it wasn't just far. There were other

911
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 1: players involved who ultimately robbed this welfare fund of like

912
00:45:50,440 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars. Let's say, take a listen to

913
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: what that Mississippi State Auditor is saying. What I can

914
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:58,720
Speaker 1: tell you is that this is the largest public fraud

915
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: case in the history of the state of mississ Here,

916
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: in the poorest state in America, money from the state

917
00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: welfare fund, intended to help alleviate poverty was instead being

918
00:46:06,560 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: re routed by those in charge to their cronies and friends,

919
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,560
Speaker 1: nearly one hundred million dollars in all. They thought of

920
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 1: this fund as not only their own fund to do

921
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: what they wanted with, but they thought of it as

922
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:17,919
Speaker 1: a slush fund that no one was watching at all.

923
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 1: They thought of it as a slush fund. Just a

924
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 1: reminder on some of the details. Specifically with regard to FARV,

925
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,239
Speaker 1: he took five million dollars for a project to build

926
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: a volleyball stadium at the university his daughter was attending,

927
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: where he had also attended. That was like the big

928
00:46:34,560 --> 00:46:37,480
Speaker 1: part of his involvement. But there was also and this

929
00:46:37,520 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: is something he says, there there's a weird transaction involving

930
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:42,879
Speaker 1: one point one million dollars going directly to far where

931
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:46,799
Speaker 1: he was supposed to speak at three total speaking engagements,

932
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:49,399
Speaker 1: but he didn't show up to those events. So I mean,

933
00:46:49,560 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 1: already disgusting that you, who are a very wealthy man,

934
00:46:54,360 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 1: are taking this money to do these speaking gigs that

935
00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:59,399
Speaker 1: are supposed to be about like motivation or whatever. That's

936
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: the way that they justified taking this out of the

937
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,960
Speaker 1: welfare funds, which is disgraceful to start with. But then

938
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: you don't even do the speaking gigs allegedly, Again he

939
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:12,439
Speaker 1: says there was no wrongdoing here, but this is having

940
00:47:12,520 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 1: huge political reverberations. Also. Sober the former Mississippi governor was

941
00:47:18,160 --> 00:47:20,839
Speaker 1: really implicated in all of this and had sort of

942
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 1: like direct involvement. There were text messages that were revealed

943
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:25,879
Speaker 1: between him and some of the key players in this

944
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: where he seemed to know exactly what was going on.

945
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: He also denies the wrongdoing the current governor Tate Reeves

946
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: Ryan Krim look alike in case you want an image

947
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:39,319
Speaker 1: in your head, and the previous governor. You know, they're

948
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 1: really tight. He was sort of like an acolyte of

949
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 1: the previous governor. They have of the same network of

950
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:47,320
Speaker 1: donors and social circles and all of that sort of stuff.

951
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 1: So he is also implicated here and seemed to be

952
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 1: involved in what looked to be a cover up of

953
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: this whole scheme during his time in office. Well, I

954
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 1: don't know if this is the whole story of why

955
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:00,360
Speaker 1: the people in the state are not too us with

956
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: Tate Reeves, but he's actually in a little bit of

957
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 1: trouble for re election. Obviously, Mississippi deep red state. The

958
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 1: idea that a Democrat could have any shot in this

959
00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:12,439
Speaker 1: state is incredibly far fetched. I'm not going to say

960
00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 1: that the Democrat is going to win. The fact that

961
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: even within striking range is quite remarkable. It's an article

962
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 1: from the Hill, they say, Democrats, the Mississippi's governor race

963
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:25,319
Speaker 1: as ripe for an upset. He's got some of the

964
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:28,560
Speaker 1: lowest approval ratings Tate Reeves does in the entire country.

965
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: Has been named checked, they say at times, in the

966
00:48:30,719 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: state's long running welfare scandal. And if you look at

967
00:48:34,280 --> 00:48:37,759
Speaker 1: the polling, you know the Democratic candidate is only a

968
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: few points behind right now. So there's a real chance

969
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,799
Speaker 1: that if this thing continues to unravel the way that

970
00:48:44,840 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: it has been, you know that people are just done

971
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,840
Speaker 1: with this dude. Again, wouldn't bet on it, but I

972
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 1: think the fact that this is even a question mark

973
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 1: right now shows you how devastating the scandal has been

974
00:48:55,000 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 1: for him. In the entire Mississippi political class in that state,

975
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 1: red blue, independent, everybody thinks it's pretty gross to use

976
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: public funds that are allocated for single moths and poor

977
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:11,840
Speaker 1: people so that a one hundred millionaire can embezzle money

978
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:14,960
Speaker 1: and build a new volleyball stadium for his daughter. I mean,

979
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:17,720
Speaker 1: I think we can all just kind of come around

980
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 1: that and say, yeah, this is pretty crazy. And look

981
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: with Brett, they have these people dead to rise. So

982
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,359
Speaker 1: you got text messages, what do they say nobody's gonna

983
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:28,319
Speaker 1: find out about this, right, Yeah, that's right. It will

984
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: never be Yeah, it's like the press is never going

985
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:34,000
Speaker 1: to know about this, right, Like yeah, yes, First of all,

986
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: what are you doing planning the ever heard a signal?

987
00:49:36,560 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: I don't really understand uh boomers, you know when? Yeah,

988
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:44,080
Speaker 1: that's true. That's thinking that iCloud or whatever is safe.

989
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,440
Speaker 1: The Mississippi auditor here. Also, it's not like these are liberals,

990
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 1: it's not like these are democrats. They're like, this is

991
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:54,239
Speaker 1: a horrific, massive public fraud case talking about millions of

992
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:57,760
Speaker 1: dollars where you're literally using welfare funds as a slush

993
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 1: fund to build and spend on infrat structure projects that

994
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:04,600
Speaker 1: personally benefit you. This is corruption that you used to

995
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 1: see in the United States in like the eighteen hundreds. Yeah,

996
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,280
Speaker 1: and that's really what it. In a way, it's analogous.

997
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:12,799
Speaker 1: You have a you know, a governor he thinks he's untouchable,

998
00:50:13,000 --> 00:50:14,879
Speaker 1: Brett Fahr, he's like a king, right, He's I mean,

999
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: look undeniable. He's like one of the most famous people

1000
00:50:17,719 --> 00:50:20,360
Speaker 1: in the United States from Mississippi's like it's one of

1001
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: the most famous people ever come out of the state. Ever,

1002
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,359
Speaker 1: so he's probably like a god in Mississippi and that's

1003
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 1: how they treat him. And apparently he thinks he's above

1004
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:31,520
Speaker 1: the law. Yeah, absolutely, ridiculous, absolutely, And I mean, I

1005
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 1: do think the fact that you have effectively, you know,

1006
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: well one party state in Mississippi at this point where

1007
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:38,719
Speaker 1: they don't feel like there would ever be any sort

1008
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: of political accountability. Just to give you the numbers on

1009
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:43,720
Speaker 1: Tate Reeves and what's going on here. Morning Consult poll

1010
00:50:43,920 --> 00:50:46,360
Speaker 1: released this month found him among the ten governors with

1011
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: the lowest approval rating in the country Mississippi Today Siena

1012
00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: College poll found fifty seven percent of respondents, including thirty

1013
00:50:53,120 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: three percent of Republicans, want to see someone other than

1014
00:50:56,480 --> 00:50:59,759
Speaker 1: the governor as the state's top official. It wasn't that

1015
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:02,759
Speaker 1: Mississippi was one of the last states to sort of

1016
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:06,799
Speaker 1: transition from the era of like electing Democrats locally and

1017
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,279
Speaker 1: like the Dixie Crab model and that whole thing. So

1018
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: it actually wasn't that long ago that the governor was

1019
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: a Democrat. But you know, in recent years, these are

1020
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 1: blowout elections. They're winning by twenty thirty points, so to

1021
00:51:20,200 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: have an even close at all, again, utter indictment and

1022
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:28,200
Speaker 1: shows you how disgusted the public there is with this

1023
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:30,960
Speaker 1: entire scandal. Yeah, and you know what, I really think

1024
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:34,600
Speaker 1: that they should be So speaking of public corruption, scandals, fraud,

1025
00:51:34,680 --> 00:51:37,360
Speaker 1: and the history of the United States, it's all opportunity.

1026
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:41,000
Speaker 1: Hear you know, I guess past speaker Speaker Pelosi, she

1027
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: no longer has as much of an impact, let's say,

1028
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:45,920
Speaker 1: on public policy. But let's just say she's probably in

1029
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 1: the know as the representative from San Francisco. So we're

1030
00:51:49,760 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 1: about to talk about in the ticketmaster block, but really

1031
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 1: about anti trust, the government suing Google over its monopoly

1032
00:51:56,800 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 1: in the ad market, something we could probably talk about

1033
00:51:59,480 --> 00:52:02,640
Speaker 1: a lot of your breaking points with respect to YouTube. Well,

1034
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 1: right before that lawsuit came about whether it was public

1035
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 1: knowledge or not, who knows. Let's put this up there

1036
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:13,720
Speaker 1: on the screen. Nancy Pelosi reportedly with her husband sold

1037
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:18,239
Speaker 1: three million dollars actually worth of the stock just four

1038
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: weeks ago. So the next one we could put up

1039
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:25,280
Speaker 1: there on the screen. It actually shows you the exact

1040
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:28,960
Speaker 1: trades that were disclosed in the periodic transaction report. You

1041
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: could see it right there, several trades all that just

1042
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:35,600
Speaker 1: hit in the last weeks of December, and what do

1043
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 1: we see. We see trades between five hundred to five

1044
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: hundred thousand to a million dollars, all of Class A

1045
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:45,720
Speaker 1: stock that were being made. And the real question is why.

1046
00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: I mean, in many respects like we're talking here about

1047
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 1: people who literally run the government in the know representative

1048
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: here even from San Francisco. Let's even Crystal put aside

1049
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 1: the lawsuit. You represent a lot of people from Google.

1050
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:05,319
Speaker 1: You should not be trading Google, period But then you

1051
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:09,719
Speaker 1: add in the actual discussion, you add in or the lawsuit,

1052
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:13,640
Speaker 1: you add in the potential of insider knowledge, and let's

1053
00:53:13,680 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 1: all be real here. The only reason that we even

1054
00:53:16,160 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: know is because of the toothless periodic transaction report that

1055
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: comes out the it's not even real time data. That

1056
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 1: none of them may really feel particularly compelled to fawed

1057
00:53:27,040 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 1: by the law. Right who fought the exact fo or

1058
00:53:30,920 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 1: who fought the idea of a stock trading ban until

1059
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 1: they were ridiculed publicly and it became a major kind

1060
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:38,600
Speaker 1: of meme online. And at the end of the day,

1061
00:53:38,880 --> 00:53:41,319
Speaker 1: did the stock band pass that Congress? Well, no, I

1062
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: didn't listen. Both of these parties recognized that there was

1063
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 1: real public appetite for some anti corruption measures, in particular

1064
00:53:51,520 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 1: banning members from trading stocks. There was genuine bipartisan efforts

1065
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 1: working across the aisle at Agallanz Bamberger home in general,

1066
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of she was involved with a

1067
00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 1: significant effort reaching across the aisle to come up with

1068
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: something that would actually have some real teeth on this.

1069
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 1: It was all there and lo and behold, not while

1070
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:15,560
Speaker 1: Democrats had the House. And remember when Kevin McCarthy pretended

1071
00:54:15,600 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 1: like this was something he cared about. Hey, why isn't

1072
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: this one of the demands that the Kevin McCarthy holdouts

1073
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,240
Speaker 1: wanted in terms of their negotiations when they were extracting

1074
00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:28,040
Speaker 1: their pound of flesh? Hey, why isn't Kevin McCarthy talking

1075
00:54:28,080 --> 00:54:30,319
Speaker 1: about the stock trade ban now that he's actually in

1076
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 1: a position of power. Lo and behold, these people have

1077
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 1: no interest in changing the rules because they're making them

1078
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:38,239
Speaker 1: fabulously wealthy. And you know the bottom line with this

1079
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:42,760
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi stock trade and many others. Besides, it almost

1080
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:46,080
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whether it was based on inside information or not.

1081
00:54:46,480 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: The outcome is just as damaging to the American public

1082
00:54:50,239 --> 00:54:51,759
Speaker 1: because no one is going to look at this and

1083
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:53,840
Speaker 1: think like, oh, this is all just like fair and

1084
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:57,279
Speaker 1: above board and based on public information. Bullshit, When three

1085
00:54:57,280 --> 00:55:00,840
Speaker 1: weeks later this lawsuit is real yield to the public

1086
00:55:00,880 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: and we know how close you are with the Biden administration,

1087
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 1: and we know how much insider knowledge you ultimately have,

1088
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 1: Like no one is going to buy and Google stock dropped,

1089
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 1: you know, immediately after the lawsuit. I mean, not like

1090
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:16,000
Speaker 1: aren't they why, Like what exactly is going on here?

1091
00:55:16,080 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 1: And it's not just you know, it's not just Pelosi.

1092
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:21,400
Speaker 1: There's so many of them. There's like so many accounts

1093
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: these days. I just found one guy on Instagram. He

1094
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:26,919
Speaker 1: does a bunch of these videos. The Nancy Pelosi stock

1095
00:55:26,960 --> 00:55:30,800
Speaker 1: trader account actually does Republicans as well, and they disclose

1096
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:33,319
Speaker 1: and they show all kinds of trades. I mean, the

1097
00:55:33,360 --> 00:55:35,880
Speaker 1: fact that any of this is legal is insane. And

1098
00:55:35,920 --> 00:55:37,880
Speaker 1: you know, I was talking with some people on the

1099
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:40,239
Speaker 1: Hill and you know, they've even brought it up to

1100
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 1: their bosses. They're like, hey, like what are you doing

1101
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 1: And the bosses are like, oh what, you know, like

1102
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:46,360
Speaker 1: I'm and they were like no, dude, They're like, unless

1103
00:55:46,440 --> 00:55:49,200
Speaker 1: unless you can prove you're innocent, you're guilty. And I

1104
00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:52,120
Speaker 1: actually think that's the exact right way to approach a

1105
00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:56,120
Speaker 1: public politician, somebody with so much power, so much influence

1106
00:55:56,160 --> 00:55:59,200
Speaker 1: on the decision, unless you can literally prove. And then

1107
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: again to point to the fact that we're not even

1108
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:04,240
Speaker 1: talking about ETFs. We're not talking about the Dow Jones

1109
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:06,520
Speaker 1: or s and P five hundred. We're talking about direct

1110
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:11,799
Speaker 1: stocks directly impacted by US government decisions of which you know,

1111
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 1: she was one of the most powerful members and she

1112
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:16,319
Speaker 1: was actually the speaker at shell. Is you think she's

1113
00:56:16,360 --> 00:56:20,640
Speaker 1: not you know, King Jeffries is her hand righted successor. Yes,

1114
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 1: you don't think that there he's doing the things that

1115
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi strongly suggests that he should do. No, you're right,

1116
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:29,000
Speaker 1: she's still in charge over in the Democratic side, no doubt.

1117
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 1: I should note that the trades were all made technically

1118
00:56:31,120 --> 00:56:32,960
Speaker 1: while she was still speaker and would have been privy

1119
00:56:33,000 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 1: to a lot of the discussion. So there you go.

1120
00:56:35,200 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: You can take that to the bank. This is corrupt

1121
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:39,279
Speaker 1: as hell, and I really just can't believe that we

1122
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:42,480
Speaker 1: just continue to let it happen. It's outrageous. Yes, So

1123
00:56:42,719 --> 00:56:46,399
Speaker 1: on a more positive side of things, there are two

1124
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: areas where I really think the Biden administration deserves some credit,

1125
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 1: and both of them have less to do actually with

1126
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:54,600
Speaker 1: Biden himself and more to do with people that he

1127
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:56,719
Speaker 1: put in some key posts. So you know, I've been

1128
00:56:56,840 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 1: very improssed with the head of the NLRB, the National

1129
00:56:59,520 --> 00:57:02,280
Speaker 1: Labor Relates Board, in terms of, you know, really trying

1130
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:06,200
Speaker 1: to rebalance the scales with regard to corporations and labor.

1131
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:08,919
Speaker 1: The other areas anti trust, where you had Tim Woo,

1132
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 1: Jonathan Cantor, and Lena Khan who have really sought to

1133
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:15,799
Speaker 1: usher in a new era where we actually care about

1134
00:57:15,800 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 1: corporate power and we actually attempt to check corporate power.

1135
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:22,520
Speaker 1: There has been This obviously, is something that Stolar attracts

1136
00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: very closely and has done a phenomenal job educating a

1137
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:29,280
Speaker 1: lot of people, myself included. On and this week in particular,

1138
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: there were a few things that were quite significant in

1139
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:36,680
Speaker 1: the anti trust news. Number one is there were Senate

1140
00:57:36,720 --> 00:57:41,080
Speaker 1: hearings with regard to Ticketmaster and the whole Taylor Swift debacle,

1141
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 1: which led to a lot of justified questions about this

1142
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 1: monopoly and the way that they gouge consumers and screw

1143
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: artists and have total control over so much of the

1144
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:53,480
Speaker 1: live performance market. We'll get to that in a moment

1145
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,600
Speaker 1: with Ticketmaster. And the other piece was that the Department

1146
00:57:57,600 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 1: of Justice announced a big lawsuit again Google, and they're

1147
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:05,240
Speaker 1: having some success there ultimately, so folks over at the

1148
00:58:05,320 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: NBC they're very unhappy about this whole development, and in

1149
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 1: particular Jim Kramer, bless his heart, having total meltdown on

1150
00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:16,520
Speaker 1: air and also, by the way, getting a bunch of

1151
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:20,400
Speaker 1: key facts just straight up wrong in his Google lobbyist

1152
00:58:20,480 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 1: talking points that he's parroting. Here. Let's take a listen

1153
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:24,920
Speaker 1: to what he had to say. This is the most

1154
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 1: ideological anti trust department I have seen since and you'll

1155
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: get this standard oil and in Teddy Roosevelt that is

1156
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 1: their ideology. David, that's an ideology. I remember I took

1157
00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 1: marks and angles. Remember when when Angles said to people's lot,

1158
00:58:40,880 --> 00:58:42,720
Speaker 1: people are like a sack of potatoes. After she was

1159
00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:46,040
Speaker 1: speaking of the peasantry understood and under Andy trusts law,

1160
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:47,720
Speaker 1: it may be very difficult for them to prove a

1161
00:58:47,760 --> 00:58:50,160
Speaker 1: case that said, there is most shortage that she is

1162
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:54,040
Speaker 1: anti the man. It's a real throwback. We're not used

1163
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: to it. Because Obama wasn't like this, right, but they

1164
00:58:56,160 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: lost the House representatives, so they go real hard. They're hard.

1165
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,360
Speaker 1: Ohbama wasn't like that. I've read Mark first of all,

1166
00:59:03,400 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 1: I highly doubt the actually effort Marx Andegra. I don't

1167
00:59:06,520 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 1: know if he's ever wrote a book ever that said

1168
00:59:09,080 --> 00:59:12,560
Speaker 1: I mean, look, that's the finance industry getting pedaled. Really

1169
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:15,680
Speaker 1: what they see is they're calling it ideological. Whenever you're

1170
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 1: talking about straight up literal I mean, one of the

1171
00:59:18,200 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 1: things that's important A he misses who's actually doing the suing.

1172
00:59:21,840 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 1: But like the investigation itself is pretty clear. Read the

1173
00:59:25,720 --> 00:59:27,920
Speaker 1: facts that are laid out in the lawsuit. They're like,

1174
00:59:28,000 --> 00:59:31,120
Speaker 1: by our estimation, you have a monopoly, which is against

1175
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 1: US law. It's now on the government to actually prove

1176
00:59:34,760 --> 00:59:38,040
Speaker 1: those facts in a court and convince somebody that it's true,

1177
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:40,600
Speaker 1: and then we can figure out what exactly it looks

1178
00:59:40,640 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 1: like on the other end. But you know, we talked

1179
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 1: about this, I think in one of our last shows.

1180
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: Does anybody think the promise of the internet actually came true?

1181
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:50,000
Speaker 1: I remember being online in two thousand and seven, and

1182
00:59:50,000 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 1: I remember just being like wow, man, like anything is possible,

1183
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:54,920
Speaker 1: Like MySpace and Facebook and all this the idea of

1184
00:59:54,960 --> 00:59:57,640
Speaker 1: meeting all these people, Like, did we really imagine that

1185
00:59:57,680 --> 01:00:00,720
Speaker 1: we would have centralized choke hold points of Like, that's

1186
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:03,760
Speaker 1: not really what was promised. Now we're in the middle

1187
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:06,520
Speaker 1: of the AI Revolution, and I don't know. At first

1188
01:00:06,520 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 1: I was skeptical, but increasingly the way I see a

1189
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 1: lot of institutions behave I'm like, you know, I think

1190
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: this is great. Like when I'm watching these professors lose

1191
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 1: it that they can no longer just assign busy work

1192
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:18,200
Speaker 1: and then try and put They're like, oh, we made

1193
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 1: actually do something and you know, have oral examine it, which,

1194
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:22,480
Speaker 1: by the way, I think is fantastic. I think oral

1195
01:00:22,520 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 1: examination and all that is really important in terms of

1196
01:00:25,120 --> 01:00:27,040
Speaker 1: what you're actually going to take away, and maybe even

1197
01:00:27,080 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 1: the idea of credentialism and life scales and what a

1198
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 1: lot of busy work even looks like in the workplaces,

1199
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:35,120
Speaker 1: being miserable can be taken away. That's all a result

1200
01:00:35,280 --> 01:00:41,640
Speaker 1: of monopolization, which is being enormously profitable for Google, for Facebook,

1201
01:00:41,680 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: a few select companies. And I think it's a very

1202
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:45,840
Speaker 1: open question, like do we want that. We had a

1203
01:00:45,840 --> 01:00:48,040
Speaker 1: big fight in this country about that with railroads, which

1204
01:00:48,080 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 1: we recognize as infrastructure. We had the same fight with banks.

1205
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:53,720
Speaker 1: We kind of forgot that lesson a little bit two

1206
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. But why should we Why should we

1207
01:00:56,080 --> 01:00:59,200
Speaker 1: forget that lesson? It's important, this is our country. Why not.

1208
01:00:59,240 --> 01:01:01,640
Speaker 1: There's so much say about the Pramer piece. I mean,

1209
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:03,440
Speaker 1: first of all, as you point out, it just straight

1210
01:01:03,480 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 1: up got a number of the facts wrong. I thought

1211
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 1: it was Lena Khan that was involved in the suit. No,

1212
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:09,040
Speaker 1: was Jonathan Cantor of the Department of Justice, number one,

1213
01:01:09,160 --> 01:01:12,360
Speaker 1: number two. This was also not just this Justice department.

1214
01:01:12,400 --> 01:01:14,400
Speaker 1: This was also a group of eight states, So it's

1215
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 1: not just like one crazy idea log or whatever. And

1216
01:01:18,240 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: there are other lawsuits against Google that also involve a

1217
01:01:21,280 --> 01:01:24,600
Speaker 1: lot of states, including like Texas and Ken Paxton hardly

1218
01:01:24,640 --> 01:01:29,640
Speaker 1: some like hard left maniac that's number one, number two.

1219
01:01:29,920 --> 01:01:32,520
Speaker 1: And this was something a stolar flag for me as well.

1220
01:01:32,720 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 1: Is Lena Kahn actually was at odds with a lot

1221
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:40,520
Speaker 1: of labor activists who also you would say, you know,

1222
01:01:40,600 --> 01:01:44,800
Speaker 1: broadly oftentimes on the left over Microsoft and Activision because

1223
01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:46,880
Speaker 1: she was opposed to that going through. Of course, they

1224
01:01:47,240 --> 01:01:50,080
Speaker 1: liked the idea of some people on the left like

1225
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:53,080
Speaker 1: the idea of large corporations, because then that gives you

1226
01:01:53,160 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 1: one node that you can organize and can make it

1227
01:01:55,560 --> 01:01:58,520
Speaker 1: easier for Labor United to gain support. So even the

1228
01:01:58,560 --> 01:02:02,720
Speaker 1: idea that everybody on the left has one view of

1229
01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:06,040
Speaker 1: how this should all go, even that basic fact is

1230
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:10,440
Speaker 1: not true. But the bigger context for all of this

1231
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:15,920
Speaker 1: is the fact that these mergers and acquisitions are big

1232
01:02:16,080 --> 01:02:20,760
Speaker 1: business and big bonuses for Wall Street. So Kramer's friends

1233
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 1: who are still working on Wall Street and still very

1234
01:02:23,680 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 1: much in the industry, their paychecks depend on these you know,

1235
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:32,919
Speaker 1: big paydays from mergers going through ultimately. And so since

1236
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:35,880
Speaker 1: there's been a slowdown in that kind of activity because

1237
01:02:35,880 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 1: the government is applying new and long overdue, frankly scrutiny

1238
01:02:40,480 --> 01:02:43,280
Speaker 1: to these companies getting larger and larger and larger and larger,

1239
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:46,919
Speaker 1: and the impact that has on our society overall, that's

1240
01:02:47,000 --> 01:02:50,520
Speaker 1: upsetting Kramer and I'm sure upsetting a lot of his friends.

1241
01:02:50,520 --> 01:02:53,600
Speaker 1: So that's sort of the context here is he feels

1242
01:02:53,640 --> 01:02:55,360
Speaker 1: that there's you know, a lot of money at stake

1243
01:02:55,360 --> 01:02:57,880
Speaker 1: that people are losing out on because they can't just

1244
01:02:57,920 --> 01:03:02,280
Speaker 1: continue the industry of growing every thing larger and concentrating

1245
01:03:02,320 --> 01:03:04,720
Speaker 1: more and more power in these industries, and not just

1246
01:03:04,800 --> 01:03:07,440
Speaker 1: tech either. If you look at agriculture, if you look

1247
01:03:07,440 --> 01:03:11,480
Speaker 1: at basically any industry, meat packing, any industry in this country,

1248
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:14,760
Speaker 1: the amount of power and consolidation in the hands of

1249
01:03:14,800 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 1: a very few people is really disturbing. It's bad for labor,

1250
01:03:18,000 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: it's bad for competition. It's the opposite of having an

1251
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:22,480
Speaker 1: actual like free and fair market. Yeah, but it is

1252
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 1: great for stockholders, right, That's really what it's all abo

1253
01:03:25,600 --> 01:03:27,520
Speaker 1: about Wall Street. And when we think about it too,

1254
01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:29,959
Speaker 1: Ticketmas this is one other reason we should be hopeful. Look,

1255
01:03:30,160 --> 01:03:35,640
Speaker 1: the entire Congress basically was unified essentially against Ticketbaster in

1256
01:03:35,720 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 1: their hearings. I know Ryan and Emily covered it, but

1257
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:40,920
Speaker 1: I just think it is astounding to watch this mashup

1258
01:03:41,320 --> 01:03:44,960
Speaker 1: of senators from all sides, you know, using the tailor

1259
01:03:45,000 --> 01:03:48,840
Speaker 1: Swift doing the tail Swift tobacle, and sure it's cringe

1260
01:03:48,880 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: watching old people do it. That's like Taylor Swift. Should

1261
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 1: we care? I mean, they're trying to capture the public

1262
01:03:55,280 --> 01:03:58,320
Speaker 1: imagination in order to bring good to our industry. So

1263
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:00,880
Speaker 1: that's a good thing in my opinion. Let's take a listen.

1264
01:04:01,040 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: Ticketmaster Auto look in the mirror and say I'm the problem.

1265
01:04:06,040 --> 01:04:09,440
Speaker 1: It's me once again. She's cheer captain and among the bleachers.

1266
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 1: So as a ode to Taylor Swift, I will say,

1267
01:04:13,320 --> 01:04:17,640
Speaker 1: we know all too well, tarma's a relaxing thought. Aren't

1268
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 1: you envious that? For you? It's not. That's all I've

1269
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:23,000
Speaker 1: got to say. So what do you see there? I mean,

1270
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:26,240
Speaker 1: we literally have Mike Lee, we have Republicans, Democrats all

1271
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:30,440
Speaker 1: quoting Taylor Swift, and through the quotes what's actually coming through.

1272
01:04:30,800 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 1: They're all against the Live Nation Ticketmaster merger, which at

1273
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:37,800
Speaker 1: the time only a couple of bands spoke out. Nobody

1274
01:04:37,840 --> 01:04:40,960
Speaker 1: in Congress thought about it. Obama gives it the rubber stamp,

1275
01:04:41,280 --> 01:04:44,880
Speaker 1: and now here we are, it's like a complete catastrophe.

1276
01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:48,040
Speaker 1: You know. One of the artists who testified before the

1277
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:51,440
Speaker 1: Congress just did a really fantastic job like laying out

1278
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:53,680
Speaker 1: how much that it's hurt him. And this is somebody

1279
01:04:53,720 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 1: who's actually I mean, he's not like a household name

1280
01:04:56,200 --> 01:04:59,400
Speaker 1: per se, but gets a lot of views on Spotify

1281
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 1: and elsewhere, and he was just showing exactly the problems

1282
01:05:03,160 --> 01:05:05,720
Speaker 1: that it has faced his industry. Taylor Swift is just

1283
01:05:05,760 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 1: the bleeding Ageum, I was just in Mexico listened to

1284
01:05:09,440 --> 01:05:11,680
Speaker 1: a lot of Bad Bunny. Apparently they even screwed up

1285
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:14,840
Speaker 1: a Bad Bunny concert in terms of their admittance there.

1286
01:05:15,040 --> 01:05:19,040
Speaker 1: And the important point actually Matthew Zeitlin pulled this, which

1287
01:05:19,080 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 1: is over on TikTok. People are unironically like posting a

1288
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:27,360
Speaker 1: clip of Josh Holly going after Ticketmaster. I don't even

1289
01:05:27,400 --> 01:05:30,840
Speaker 1: think they know anything about Ticketmaster or even or sorry,

1290
01:05:30,880 --> 01:05:33,000
Speaker 1: they don't know anything about who Josh Holly is. But

1291
01:05:33,280 --> 01:05:37,880
Speaker 1: the clips on Congress of Ticketmaster getting flamed is really

1292
01:05:38,000 --> 01:05:41,200
Speaker 1: touching a cultural nerve. Here's an example of that. You're

1293
01:05:41,200 --> 01:05:43,640
Speaker 1: forcing everybody who just wants to get this ticket on

1294
01:05:43,680 --> 01:05:46,640
Speaker 1: the resale market, who hasn't bought from you suberctad to

1295
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:49,400
Speaker 1: begin with, You're forcing them to become your customer in

1296
01:05:49,480 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 1: order to take possession of this ticket. I mean that's

1297
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:54,480
Speaker 1: really something. I mean, hats off to you, I guess

1298
01:05:54,520 --> 01:05:56,640
Speaker 1: for being innovative and using your monopoly, But I have

1299
01:05:56,680 --> 01:06:00,320
Speaker 1: to tell you, from a competition standpoint, this really really

1300
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:02,520
Speaker 1: worries me. So what do you see there? It's like

1301
01:06:02,680 --> 01:06:05,040
Speaker 1: whoever put those and overlight that on it? It's clearly

1302
01:06:05,040 --> 01:06:07,880
Speaker 1: becoming like a meme. It's something that really was felt.

1303
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:11,400
Speaker 1: So Taylor Swift situation, I think just happened really at

1304
01:06:11,400 --> 01:06:14,200
Speaker 1: the exact right time. Your entire job of Celtic is

1305
01:06:14,240 --> 01:06:16,479
Speaker 1: you literally can't even do that in a competent manner.

1306
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:18,760
Speaker 1: But there's a lot more that's been going on behind

1307
01:06:18,800 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 1: the scenes over a decade. And if this is the

1308
01:06:21,120 --> 01:06:23,680
Speaker 1: one heartening area where we can say like something is changing,

1309
01:06:23,840 --> 01:06:26,880
Speaker 1: good reward politicians for this instead of like, you know,

1310
01:06:26,960 --> 01:06:29,640
Speaker 1: his January sixth to fist point good point. Yeah. See,

1311
01:06:29,760 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: you can go the cynical place to ultimately take a

1312
01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:36,040
Speaker 1: stand up. Sometimes you can go viral whenever you do

1313
01:06:36,120 --> 01:06:39,320
Speaker 1: good things. So listen, it's a message of hope. I

1314
01:06:39,320 --> 01:06:44,919
Speaker 1: think Bush all right, Zager, what are you looking at it? Well.

1315
01:06:45,080 --> 01:06:47,720
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that gas prices matter politically is

1316
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:50,240
Speaker 1: the simple fact that most Americans just drive past it

1317
01:06:50,280 --> 01:06:52,320
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis. You drive one day,

1318
01:06:52,400 --> 01:06:54,120
Speaker 1: you see the price go up. You do it every

1319
01:06:54,160 --> 01:06:56,040
Speaker 1: single day for a month. You pull in, you see

1320
01:06:56,040 --> 01:06:58,120
Speaker 1: a bill higher. Then you just say, what the hell's

1321
01:06:58,160 --> 01:07:00,320
Speaker 1: going on in this country? It's a relative in a

1322
01:07:00,360 --> 01:07:02,800
Speaker 1: lastic product. Most of us needed on a regular basis.

1323
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:05,560
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to adjust to when you see even

1324
01:07:05,600 --> 01:07:08,360
Speaker 1: massive increases in price. But gas it's not the only

1325
01:07:08,400 --> 01:07:10,880
Speaker 1: product that's doing that, so is the grocery store. And

1326
01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:13,000
Speaker 1: while we focus a lot on the grocery store bills

1327
01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 1: and the aggregate, let's zoom in on something that a

1328
01:07:15,360 --> 01:07:18,560
Speaker 1: lot of you have taken notice of. Eggs. Eggs are interesting.

1329
01:07:18,800 --> 01:07:21,840
Speaker 1: Most Americans buy them on a weekly basis. In fact,

1330
01:07:21,880 --> 01:07:25,400
Speaker 1: the average American consumes nearly three hundred eggs per year,

1331
01:07:25,600 --> 01:07:27,800
Speaker 1: and actually the amount of eggs that we eat has

1332
01:07:27,840 --> 01:07:30,160
Speaker 1: significantly gone up in the last few years to the

1333
01:07:30,240 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 1: highest level in over fifty years. Eggs are and I've

1334
01:07:33,360 --> 01:07:35,600
Speaker 1: always been an important part of the American diet, from

1335
01:07:35,640 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 1: its inclusion in baked goods to the quintessential breakfast, which

1336
01:07:38,720 --> 01:07:41,080
Speaker 1: is why the price increase over the last few years

1337
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:43,560
Speaker 1: or so has been so devastating to a lot of

1338
01:07:43,560 --> 01:07:46,200
Speaker 1: households and shocking. As you can see in the chart

1339
01:07:46,240 --> 01:07:49,040
Speaker 1: before you, before the pandemic, eggs were roughly the same

1340
01:07:49,080 --> 01:07:52,200
Speaker 1: price as the nineteen eighties. There was minor price improvement

1341
01:07:52,200 --> 01:07:54,800
Speaker 1: in two minor price movement in twenty fifteen, but by

1342
01:07:54,840 --> 01:07:57,640
Speaker 1: and large it was like a reliable, staple, stable product.

1343
01:07:57,880 --> 01:08:01,000
Speaker 1: Relative productivity increases in the egg industy actually kept the

1344
01:08:01,000 --> 01:08:03,880
Speaker 1: price down over time. It's part of why Americans could

1345
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:06,400
Speaker 1: be so reliant on eggs as a cheap way to

1346
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:09,720
Speaker 1: feed their families. That is, of course, until twenty twenty two,

1347
01:08:09,760 --> 01:08:12,160
Speaker 1: and now twenty twenty three. As the chart shows, the

1348
01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:16,360
Speaker 1: national retail price of eggs is over four dollars a dozen,

1349
01:08:16,600 --> 01:08:19,000
Speaker 1: when just a year ago it was a buck seventy nine.

1350
01:08:19,320 --> 01:08:22,000
Speaker 1: What accounts for a two hundred percent increase in the

1351
01:08:22,040 --> 01:08:24,879
Speaker 1: price of eggs, Well, if you ask the egg industry,

1352
01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:27,920
Speaker 1: they will tell you bird flu. Seems simple though, right.

1353
01:08:28,160 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 1: A historic bird flu outbreak that is killing hens means

1354
01:08:31,040 --> 01:08:33,880
Speaker 1: less supply while demand is high hans the price. But

1355
01:08:33,960 --> 01:08:36,240
Speaker 1: is that everything that's going on? If you read deeper,

1356
01:08:36,360 --> 01:08:38,800
Speaker 1: it doesn't really appear to be the case. While bird

1357
01:08:38,840 --> 01:08:41,800
Speaker 1: flu is definitely bad, the total flock size of egg

1358
01:08:41,880 --> 01:08:44,680
Speaker 1: layers across the country has actually only gone down by

1359
01:08:44,760 --> 01:08:47,599
Speaker 1: four to five percent. A four to five percent reduction

1360
01:08:47,680 --> 01:08:50,040
Speaker 1: in the number of hens laying eggs does not even

1361
01:08:50,080 --> 01:08:53,320
Speaker 1: come close to explaining that price increase. In fact, the

1362
01:08:53,439 --> 01:08:56,600
Speaker 1: largest US producer of eggs, cow Maine, Foods is the

1363
01:08:56,640 --> 01:09:00,479
Speaker 1: perfect illustration. Last month, it reported its overall sales dollar

1364
01:09:00,560 --> 01:09:03,600
Speaker 1: volume rose to a nearly one billion dollars over the

1365
01:09:03,680 --> 01:09:06,800
Speaker 1: last quarter, helping it generate one hundred and ninety eight

1366
01:09:06,920 --> 01:09:09,720
Speaker 1: million dollars in profit. So how much profit did they

1367
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:12,599
Speaker 1: make the year before, Well, it was a million dollars.

1368
01:09:12,880 --> 01:09:14,880
Speaker 1: So are you starting to get the picture? You have

1369
01:09:14,920 --> 01:09:17,360
Speaker 1: a two hundred percent increase in the price and then

1370
01:09:17,400 --> 01:09:20,240
Speaker 1: you have a two hundred percent increase in profit. Interesting,

1371
01:09:20,360 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 1: but it's bird flu that's the largest segg producer. Though

1372
01:09:23,280 --> 01:09:25,120
Speaker 1: to be fair, it hasn't been so easy for egg

1373
01:09:25,120 --> 01:09:27,559
Speaker 1: producers in the last year or so. The Russian invasion

1374
01:09:27,560 --> 01:09:30,320
Speaker 1: of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions on the Russian economy

1375
01:09:30,479 --> 01:09:34,400
Speaker 1: have actually pushed grain prices to sky high levels, leading

1376
01:09:34,439 --> 01:09:37,960
Speaker 1: to an immense increase in the cost for egg producers

1377
01:09:38,080 --> 01:09:40,360
Speaker 1: to feed their hens. When you add on top the

1378
01:09:40,360 --> 01:09:44,040
Speaker 1: immense amount of petroleum product needed for transportation, farm equipment,

1379
01:09:44,320 --> 01:09:47,880
Speaker 1: natural gas, and all of that redirected into a refrigeration,

1380
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:50,240
Speaker 1: and you get the result of what we have right now.

1381
01:09:50,800 --> 01:09:52,920
Speaker 1: Really bad news is that while prices appear to be

1382
01:09:52,960 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 1: receding from their December high, that's peak egg demand during

1383
01:09:56,200 --> 01:09:59,400
Speaker 1: the holidays, the price effect is actually still being felt

1384
01:09:59,400 --> 01:10:02,439
Speaker 1: heartily at the grocery store. Worse, we are beginning to

1385
01:10:02,439 --> 01:10:04,320
Speaker 1: see the same thing that we did with gas at

1386
01:10:04,360 --> 01:10:06,839
Speaker 1: five dollars a gallon. When gas got to the highest

1387
01:10:06,840 --> 01:10:10,240
Speaker 1: point in modern history, people just started driving a lot less,

1388
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:12,960
Speaker 1: not because they wanted to, but because they had to.

1389
01:10:13,160 --> 01:10:15,640
Speaker 1: They stopped going out to eat, reduce their lifestyle. They

1390
01:10:15,680 --> 01:10:18,439
Speaker 1: were just more miserable reduce their savings. Same things happening

1391
01:10:18,479 --> 01:10:21,120
Speaker 1: right now with eggs. Putting aside the nineteen nineties idiotic

1392
01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:24,000
Speaker 1: thinking about cholesterol, eggs are actually very good for you.

1393
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:27,639
Speaker 1: They're relatively fresh, natural and a complete protein filling. There's

1394
01:10:27,640 --> 01:10:29,519
Speaker 1: a reason that a lot of people eat them for breakfast.

1395
01:10:29,640 --> 01:10:32,879
Speaker 1: But as egg prices increase and people adjust, they're naturally

1396
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:35,680
Speaker 1: going to reduce their consumption of food in favor of

1397
01:10:35,760 --> 01:10:40,360
Speaker 1: what is cheap. What's cheap you already know process fast food,

1398
01:10:40,600 --> 01:10:44,320
Speaker 1: anything instant. It's probably processed as hell, designed to be hyperpalatable,

1399
01:10:44,520 --> 01:10:47,760
Speaker 1: more likely to be less nutritious. What says cheap in

1400
01:10:47,840 --> 01:10:51,120
Speaker 1: bad times versus what gets expensive actually tells you a

1401
01:10:51,160 --> 01:10:54,519
Speaker 1: lot about society and what it's designed for. The simple

1402
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:57,559
Speaker 1: truth appears to be. We are designed to make sure

1403
01:10:57,800 --> 01:11:02,120
Speaker 1: the lowest common denominator of price is the least nutritious.

1404
01:11:02,360 --> 01:11:05,559
Speaker 1: Thus the poorous and most vulnerable amongst us are pushed

1405
01:11:05,720 --> 01:11:08,639
Speaker 1: to process food. At the outbreak of COVID, I actually

1406
01:11:08,640 --> 01:11:10,479
Speaker 1: have a lot of hope come together, as we did

1407
01:11:10,479 --> 01:11:13,160
Speaker 1: in previous national crises, wake up to our lack of resilience,

1408
01:11:13,280 --> 01:11:15,680
Speaker 1: the fact that we don't make anything here anymore. Our

1409
01:11:15,760 --> 01:11:19,040
Speaker 1: hyper concentrated economy designed for just in time and not

1410
01:11:19,080 --> 01:11:21,200
Speaker 1: for the flourishing of our people. But we didn't wake

1411
01:11:21,240 --> 01:11:23,040
Speaker 1: up to any of that. We didn't get good leadership

1412
01:11:23,120 --> 01:11:25,560
Speaker 1: under Trump or Biden. We're just left to fend for ourselves.

1413
01:11:25,720 --> 01:11:28,519
Speaker 1: That's why people are so angry right now. They're not stupid.

1414
01:11:28,720 --> 01:11:31,800
Speaker 1: They know what's going on is not right. It's just

1415
01:11:31,840 --> 01:11:34,599
Speaker 1: that nobody is looking to actually do anything about it.

1416
01:11:34,600 --> 01:11:37,439
Speaker 1: It's really frustrating. That's the interesting thing about eggs. I

1417
01:11:37,479 --> 01:11:39,320
Speaker 1: love that statistic where they're liking and if you want

1418
01:11:39,320 --> 01:11:42,439
Speaker 1: to hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue, become a premium

1419
01:11:42,439 --> 01:11:48,040
Speaker 1: subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Chrystal, what do you

1420
01:11:48,080 --> 01:11:50,880
Speaker 1: take a look at? Well, guys, Joe Rogan recently floated

1421
01:11:50,920 --> 01:11:54,360
Speaker 1: a conspiracy for what is really behind the Biden document scandal.

1422
01:11:54,439 --> 01:11:57,559
Speaker 1: Take a listen. If I had to guess they're trying

1423
01:11:57,600 --> 01:11:59,920
Speaker 1: to get rid of him, Yeah, that my guess would

1424
01:11:59,920 --> 01:12:01,360
Speaker 1: be they're trying to get rid of him. If all

1425
01:12:01,400 --> 01:12:06,439
Speaker 1: of a sudden, his own aids are sending these instead

1426
01:12:06,439 --> 01:12:10,200
Speaker 1: of like taking these classified documents which you have located

1427
01:12:10,479 --> 01:12:12,880
Speaker 1: and go well, let's not do that again and fucking

1428
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:17,280
Speaker 1: locking them up somewhere, his own aids self reporting. Dude,

1429
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:20,599
Speaker 1: Come on, that sounds suss Well, no one self reported

1430
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:24,560
Speaker 1: that fucking laptop. I know that was that was Russian disinformation.

1431
01:12:25,360 --> 01:12:28,200
Speaker 1: That reeks ovation. They got a hold of the social

1432
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:31,360
Speaker 1: media companies and lied to them. They did whatever the

1433
01:12:31,360 --> 01:12:33,760
Speaker 1: fuck they could to keep that from happening. And even this,

1434
01:12:33,920 --> 01:12:38,280
Speaker 1: they discovered this before the midterms. Now, I'm not sure

1435
01:12:38,320 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 1: that any of the people around Biden are actually clever

1436
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:43,240
Speaker 1: cunning enough to pull off this elaborate plot, but Rogan

1437
01:12:43,320 --> 01:12:45,800
Speaker 1: is picking up on something that is a real dynamic here.

1438
01:12:46,080 --> 01:12:48,839
Speaker 1: Biden is not in a great position politically in general,

1439
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,519
Speaker 1: and the continued fallout from this document scandal has been

1440
01:12:51,600 --> 01:12:55,800
Speaker 1: an absolute catastrophe for him. On a substantive level, there

1441
01:12:55,880 --> 01:12:59,040
Speaker 1: remain real questions about how the hell this all happened,

1442
01:12:59,200 --> 01:13:02,360
Speaker 1: the level of airlessness it implies, the real possibility of

1443
01:13:02,439 --> 01:13:06,080
Speaker 1: national security compromise, the arrogance of expecting a separate system

1444
01:13:06,120 --> 01:13:09,639
Speaker 1: of justice for yourself. On a political level, though, if anything,

1445
01:13:09,800 --> 01:13:14,320
Speaker 1: the situation is even worse. Why because Biden's document scandal

1446
01:13:14,400 --> 01:13:17,760
Speaker 1: hits him right where it matters the most, electability, and

1447
01:13:17,800 --> 01:13:20,599
Speaker 1: there were already some real warning signs for Joe Biden

1448
01:13:20,720 --> 01:13:23,800
Speaker 1: in that buried department. Stretch your memory way back to

1449
01:13:23,840 --> 01:13:26,360
Speaker 1: the days of the twenty twenty Democratic primary. Pete and

1450
01:13:26,439 --> 01:13:29,240
Speaker 1: Kamala and Beto and John Delaney. They were all there.

1451
01:13:29,320 --> 01:13:32,000
Speaker 1: Bernie too, of course, but in the end one figure

1452
01:13:32,040 --> 01:13:35,720
Speaker 1: stood alone, Joseph Robinette Biden. It wasn't that voters were

1453
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:38,960
Speaker 1: particularly enthusiastic about Biden's policy positions. They did have some

1454
01:13:39,000 --> 01:13:42,160
Speaker 1: warmth for him personally, but they preferred Bernie on any

1455
01:13:42,240 --> 01:13:45,360
Speaker 1: number of issues. Ultimately, though, they came to believe Biden

1456
01:13:45,560 --> 01:13:49,200
Speaker 1: was best on the issue that they put above all others, electability,

1457
01:13:49,600 --> 01:13:52,639
Speaker 1: And they were right, sort of, because he completed the mission.

1458
01:13:52,680 --> 01:13:55,040
Speaker 1: He did beat Donald Trump, although it was ultimately really

1459
01:13:55,040 --> 01:13:58,240
Speaker 1: too close for comfort. Now Biden is facing his reelect,

1460
01:13:58,320 --> 01:14:01,320
Speaker 1: and in some ways, up until recent that squishy pundit

1461
01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:05,360
Speaker 1: defined quality of electibility looked relatively intact strengthened even first

1462
01:14:05,400 --> 01:14:08,000
Speaker 1: and foremost, he is the incumbent president that typically does

1463
01:14:08,040 --> 01:14:10,719
Speaker 1: count for something. But he also defied history in the midterms,

1464
01:14:10,720 --> 01:14:13,920
Speaker 1: avoided the absolute democratic she lacking that looked imminent and

1465
01:14:13,960 --> 01:14:15,800
Speaker 1: which had become a sort of political custom for the

1466
01:14:15,800 --> 01:14:19,240
Speaker 1: party in the White House. Sure voters consistently told pollsters

1467
01:14:19,280 --> 01:14:21,200
Speaker 1: they would love some options other than Joe Biden and

1468
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:24,600
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. Sure Democratic voters consistently said they did not

1469
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 1: actually even want Biden to run for president again. But

1470
01:14:28,439 --> 01:14:30,360
Speaker 1: in the wake of the midterms, it felt like those

1471
01:14:30,479 --> 01:14:33,800
Speaker 1: lingering doubts would surely be assuaged. But the truth is,

1472
01:14:34,000 --> 01:14:36,200
Speaker 1: although the midterms might have shut up the press and

1473
01:14:36,280 --> 01:14:39,439
Speaker 1: the Democratic politicians who distanced themselves from Biden leading up

1474
01:14:39,439 --> 01:14:43,080
Speaker 1: to November, they didn't actually quiet the public's doubts. For

1475
01:14:43,120 --> 01:14:46,360
Speaker 1: an incumbent president. Biden continues to be in a very

1476
01:14:46,520 --> 01:14:50,760
Speaker 1: weak position with regards to his own Democratic base. As

1477
01:14:50,880 --> 01:14:54,200
Speaker 1: a shocking example of how that weakness shows up in

1478
01:14:54,200 --> 01:14:56,120
Speaker 1: the numbers, there's a new poll that just came out

1479
01:14:56,400 --> 01:15:00,160
Speaker 1: testing a hypothetical twenty twenty four Democratic primary in the

1480
01:15:00,200 --> 01:15:03,559
Speaker 1: key state of New Hampshire. Overall, you're ready for this,

1481
01:15:04,240 --> 01:15:07,920
Speaker 1: sixty six percent of New Hampshire Democrats say they are

1482
01:15:07,960 --> 01:15:11,519
Speaker 1: opposed to Biden running for a second term. Plus and

1483
01:15:11,560 --> 01:15:13,040
Speaker 1: this makes me throw up a little bit in my

1484
01:15:13,040 --> 01:15:16,679
Speaker 1: mouth to say, but it's got Pete Boodhagic beating Biden

1485
01:15:16,960 --> 01:15:20,160
Speaker 1: by five points. What's even more notable is that Biden's

1486
01:15:20,200 --> 01:15:22,320
Speaker 1: actually lost ground in this pole since the last time

1487
01:15:22,320 --> 01:15:24,360
Speaker 1: they tested the water so that was back in July.

1488
01:15:24,920 --> 01:15:28,960
Speaker 1: Back then, Biden only trailed Pete by one Elizabeth Warren

1489
01:15:28,960 --> 01:15:32,320
Speaker 1: and Bernie Sanders they have also seen their support rise now.

1490
01:15:32,320 --> 01:15:34,719
Speaker 1: Biden's erosion in this poll is counter to the media

1491
01:15:34,800 --> 01:15:37,320
Speaker 1: narrative that the midterms basically shored up his standing and

1492
01:15:37,360 --> 01:15:41,040
Speaker 1: erased any lingering Democratic doubts. The result is even more

1493
01:15:41,080 --> 01:15:44,080
Speaker 1: worrying for Biden given what a colossal mess Pete has

1494
01:15:44,120 --> 01:15:46,639
Speaker 1: made lately with his unwillingness to hold the criminal airlines

1495
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:50,040
Speaker 1: to account. They're losing to that guy. Now. It's true

1496
01:15:50,040 --> 01:15:51,920
Speaker 1: that New Hampshire is not a great state for Biden.

1497
01:15:51,960 --> 01:15:54,160
Speaker 1: He does better with black and Latino Democrats than with

1498
01:15:54,200 --> 01:15:57,839
Speaker 1: the overwhelmingly white population of New Hampshire, but he continues

1499
01:15:57,880 --> 01:16:01,240
Speaker 1: to show plenty of weakness at the national overall level. Two.

1500
01:16:01,640 --> 01:16:04,559
Speaker 1: In a new Emerson pole, a sizable minority forty two

1501
01:16:04,600 --> 01:16:07,639
Speaker 1: percent of Democrats say they want a different nominee. That

1502
01:16:07,680 --> 01:16:10,719
Speaker 1: same pole finds Biden losing a head to head matchup

1503
01:16:10,760 --> 01:16:14,839
Speaker 1: against DeSantis, but even more disturbing, it's got him trailing

1504
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:18,920
Speaker 1: Trump by forty four to forty one. Now this comes

1505
01:16:18,960 --> 01:16:21,080
Speaker 1: on the heels of a separate Harvard Harris pole, which

1506
01:16:21,120 --> 01:16:25,240
Speaker 1: found Biden trailing Trump by five. Since Democratic voters selected

1507
01:16:25,280 --> 01:16:28,439
Speaker 1: Biden for his electability, it then makes sense that their

1508
01:16:28,439 --> 01:16:30,479
Speaker 1: continued support of him would rise and fall with their

1509
01:16:30,520 --> 01:16:33,479
Speaker 1: sense of whether or not he can win again, whether

1510
01:16:33,560 --> 01:16:35,439
Speaker 1: or not he is the best candidate to take on

1511
01:16:35,520 --> 01:16:38,519
Speaker 1: a Trump or a DeSantis, And they have some good

1512
01:16:38,560 --> 01:16:41,240
Speaker 1: reason at this point to be a little doubtful. For one,

1513
01:16:41,600 --> 01:16:44,320
Speaker 1: Biden ain't getting any younger or any more capable. His

1514
01:16:44,360 --> 01:16:46,400
Speaker 1: ability to do the job for another four year term

1515
01:16:46,479 --> 01:16:48,920
Speaker 1: has long been one of the top concerns of Democratic

1516
01:16:49,000 --> 01:16:52,840
Speaker 1: voters and general election voters alike, But now Biden is

1517
01:16:52,880 --> 01:16:55,799
Speaker 1: in a terrible position to make a strong case against Trump.

1518
01:16:55,960 --> 01:16:58,120
Speaker 1: It's going to be Hillary Clinton all over again. Try

1519
01:16:58,160 --> 01:17:00,000
Speaker 1: and attack Trump on his character but being two flowed,

1520
01:17:00,040 --> 01:17:02,479
Speaker 1: but personally for any of it to really land and stick,

1521
01:17:03,000 --> 01:17:06,240
Speaker 1: there's no way that Biden can use Trump's own document

1522
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:09,439
Speaker 1: malfeasans against him now, Not to mention, the fact that

1523
01:17:09,479 --> 01:17:12,320
Speaker 1: Biden now Pence had been caught in very similar misdeeds

1524
01:17:12,479 --> 01:17:15,160
Speaker 1: makes it so much less likely that Trump is going

1525
01:17:15,160 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 1: to be indicted. Listen, not long ago, I thought that

1526
01:17:18,600 --> 01:17:21,040
Speaker 1: was really little likelihood that Trump could make it back

1527
01:17:21,040 --> 01:17:23,479
Speaker 1: into the White House again. Now I am not so

1528
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:27,040
Speaker 1: sure whatsoever. Republicans did not stick the knife in and

1529
01:17:27,080 --> 01:17:31,759
Speaker 1: Biden's thrown him a massive lifeline. Biden's supposed delectability saved

1530
01:17:31,760 --> 01:17:34,360
Speaker 1: his political career in twenty twenty, but in twenty twenty

1531
01:17:34,360 --> 01:17:36,840
Speaker 1: four he's going to have to sell something else to

1532
01:17:36,880 --> 01:17:41,240
Speaker 1: Democratic voters because far from a strong contender, he looks very,

1533
01:17:41,560 --> 01:17:45,719
Speaker 1: very vulnerable and there's a bit of an intrad democratic

1534
01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:48,479
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,

1535
01:17:48,479 --> 01:17:54,679
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. Ryan

1536
01:17:54,720 --> 01:17:57,880
Speaker 1: Cooper is The Prospect's managing editor and also author of

1537
01:17:58,120 --> 01:18:00,439
Speaker 1: how are you going to pay for that? Smart answers

1538
01:18:00,479 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 1: to the dumbest question in politics. Great to have you, Ryan, Welcome,

1539
01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:07,760
Speaker 1: Good to see you man, Glad to be here. Yeah. Absolutely,

1540
01:18:07,800 --> 01:18:11,479
Speaker 1: So you wrote an intelligent piece about this new idea

1541
01:18:11,520 --> 01:18:14,360
Speaker 1: that was proposed by Bill Cassidy and Angus King. Let's

1542
01:18:14,360 --> 01:18:16,639
Speaker 1: go and throw this up on the screen. The headline

1543
01:18:16,680 --> 01:18:19,680
Speaker 1: here from the Prospect is the smart bipartisan plan to

1544
01:18:19,840 --> 01:18:23,799
Speaker 1: shore up social Security. Bill Cassidy and Angus King propose

1545
01:18:23,880 --> 01:18:26,880
Speaker 1: an American Social Wealth Fund. So I would love it

1546
01:18:26,920 --> 01:18:29,320
Speaker 1: if you could just start with the very basics of

1547
01:18:29,760 --> 01:18:33,120
Speaker 1: what is a social wealth fund and why is this

1548
01:18:33,200 --> 01:18:36,400
Speaker 1: even being contemplated at this point at all. Yeah. Well,

1549
01:18:36,680 --> 01:18:40,520
Speaker 1: a social wealth fund is quite simple. It's just a

1550
01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:45,920
Speaker 1: government investment account. Basically, you know, the government finds a

1551
01:18:46,000 --> 01:18:48,800
Speaker 1: source of revenue from somewhere and they use it to

1552
01:18:48,880 --> 01:18:54,080
Speaker 1: buy buy up some kind of investment stocks, bonds, real estate.

1553
01:18:55,720 --> 01:18:58,479
Speaker 1: Alaska actually has one of these. They seeded it with

1554
01:18:58,560 --> 01:19:03,479
Speaker 1: their oil money, but it's not the They pay a

1555
01:19:03,520 --> 01:19:07,120
Speaker 1: dividend out of that to every Alaskan. The money doesn't

1556
01:19:07,120 --> 01:19:09,400
Speaker 1: come directly from the oil. It's important to understand it

1557
01:19:09,400 --> 01:19:12,120
Speaker 1: comes from the investment returns of the fund they have

1558
01:19:12,160 --> 01:19:14,880
Speaker 1: about I think the current total is about seventy five

1559
01:19:14,920 --> 01:19:19,200
Speaker 1: billion dollars right now. So anyway, it's it's as simple

1560
01:19:19,240 --> 01:19:23,160
Speaker 1: as that. It's just like any wealthy individual they has

1561
01:19:23,560 --> 01:19:25,960
Speaker 1: stuff like this. This will be just doing it on

1562
01:19:26,000 --> 01:19:29,599
Speaker 1: a government scale. And the proposal is to just use

1563
01:19:29,680 --> 01:19:35,200
Speaker 1: that as a source of revenue to basically bolster the

1564
01:19:35,200 --> 01:19:39,479
Speaker 1: finances of Social Security, find another revenue stream for it,

1565
01:19:39,520 --> 01:19:44,280
Speaker 1: as it were. And so they proposed to not take

1566
01:19:44,320 --> 01:19:47,880
Speaker 1: the existing Social Security Trust Fund, but to find some

1567
01:19:48,160 --> 01:19:51,879
Speaker 1: money from somewhere else, in this case by borrowing actually

1568
01:19:52,400 --> 01:19:57,599
Speaker 1: and invest it in stocks or I think that's mainly

1569
01:19:57,600 --> 01:19:59,840
Speaker 1: what they proposed. But you know, theoretically you could put

1570
01:19:59,840 --> 01:20:03,000
Speaker 1: it and whatever you wanted to, right So, Ryan, I mean,

1571
01:20:03,080 --> 01:20:04,760
Speaker 1: what are the arguments against this? I guess one of

1572
01:20:04,800 --> 01:20:07,880
Speaker 1: them would be, at least with Social Security, it's a guarantee,

1573
01:20:07,960 --> 01:20:10,519
Speaker 1: you know, stop s and P five hundred returns like whatever,

1574
01:20:10,560 --> 01:20:13,639
Speaker 1: thirteen percent on average, but sometimes it drops by twenty

1575
01:20:13,640 --> 01:20:15,960
Speaker 1: two percent and sometimes it got up by forty sight.

1576
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:18,519
Speaker 1: What would you do? How do you mitigate the downside

1577
01:20:18,600 --> 01:20:21,000
Speaker 1: risk I guessed to taxpayer money and to the overall

1578
01:20:21,000 --> 01:20:27,840
Speaker 1: benefit well, there's a risk with everything, you know. One

1579
01:20:28,479 --> 01:20:31,880
Speaker 1: of the reasons we have this problem right now, which

1580
01:20:31,960 --> 01:20:35,160
Speaker 1: is that the Social Security Trust Fund is scheduled it'll

1581
01:20:35,280 --> 01:20:39,280
Speaker 1: they estimate it will be exhausted by about twenty thirty

1582
01:20:39,320 --> 01:20:42,920
Speaker 1: four or so, is because that the money has been

1583
01:20:42,960 --> 01:20:48,120
Speaker 1: invested in this hyper conservative account, which is all Treasury bonds.

1584
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:51,000
Speaker 1: And as you say, you know, there's an enormous difference

1585
01:20:51,120 --> 01:20:53,800
Speaker 1: over the last like thirty years, is about an eight

1586
01:20:53,880 --> 01:20:56,960
Speaker 1: percentage point difference between the return on the S and

1587
01:20:57,000 --> 01:21:00,519
Speaker 1: P five hundred and the return on the United States debt.

1588
01:21:00,760 --> 01:21:04,960
Speaker 1: So you know there is a risk, but you know

1589
01:21:05,040 --> 01:21:08,200
Speaker 1: there's also a risk to not doing it, which is

1590
01:21:08,240 --> 01:21:10,599
Speaker 1: that you know you're leaving money on the table. And

1591
01:21:10,600 --> 01:21:13,280
Speaker 1: one of the nice things about a government is that

1592
01:21:13,320 --> 01:21:17,280
Speaker 1: you have a theoretically infinite time horizon, and so if

1593
01:21:17,320 --> 01:21:20,160
Speaker 1: there's a bad turn in the market, you can usually

1594
01:21:20,240 --> 01:21:22,280
Speaker 1: just wait it out. You know, this is this These

1595
01:21:22,320 --> 01:21:25,960
Speaker 1: are usually transitory things that only last a couple of years,

1596
01:21:26,360 --> 01:21:28,880
Speaker 1: and so you can you can basically sit on your hands.

1597
01:21:29,360 --> 01:21:32,880
Speaker 1: You could in the case of an you know, extreme event,

1598
01:21:33,200 --> 01:21:36,240
Speaker 1: just like bolster it up with some extra borrowed money

1599
01:21:36,479 --> 01:21:39,600
Speaker 1: or something like that. And just wait for things to

1600
01:21:39,960 --> 01:21:42,559
Speaker 1: turn around. So you know, it's not like a person

1601
01:21:42,760 --> 01:21:46,400
Speaker 1: where they you know, you absolutely must get your money

1602
01:21:46,439 --> 01:21:49,200
Speaker 1: out when you need it. You know, the government can

1603
01:21:50,040 --> 01:21:52,400
Speaker 1: shore things, you know, paper over the cracks for a

1604
01:21:52,439 --> 01:21:55,400
Speaker 1: long time. Got it. How do you like this idea

1605
01:21:55,600 --> 01:21:59,439
Speaker 1: as opposed to what Senator Sanders has long proposed and

1606
01:21:59,560 --> 01:22:02,400
Speaker 1: others And apparently Joe Manchin just came out in support

1607
01:22:02,439 --> 01:22:05,240
Speaker 1: of the idea of lifting the income cap. So right

1608
01:22:05,280 --> 01:22:08,120
Speaker 1: now there's a limit to the amount of wage income

1609
01:22:08,160 --> 01:22:10,679
Speaker 1: that is actually taxed to go into the Social Security

1610
01:22:10,680 --> 01:22:13,080
Speaker 1: Trust Fund. The idea is like, why are we giving

1611
01:22:13,080 --> 01:22:16,400
Speaker 1: this tax break to the wealthy? Basically that is undercutting

1612
01:22:16,439 --> 01:22:19,000
Speaker 1: the ability to make sure that social security benefits will

1613
01:22:19,040 --> 01:22:22,320
Speaker 1: be there for retirees into the future. What do you

1614
01:22:22,360 --> 01:22:27,880
Speaker 1: make of that proposal? Instead? I think that's great. You know.

1615
01:22:27,960 --> 01:22:30,920
Speaker 1: The reason I would say I mainly like this social

1616
01:22:30,920 --> 01:22:34,040
Speaker 1: security you know, investment scheme is that it puts the

1617
01:22:34,120 --> 01:22:36,559
Speaker 1: idea of a social wealth fund on the table, and

1618
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:39,280
Speaker 1: I think if you're actually going to do it, you know,

1619
01:22:39,320 --> 01:22:41,920
Speaker 1: the way to do it would be like Alaska. Basically,

1620
01:22:42,280 --> 01:22:46,760
Speaker 1: you know, you're taking some of the capital income of

1621
01:22:46,800 --> 01:22:50,439
Speaker 1: the country, the income from investment returns. This is about

1622
01:22:50,520 --> 01:22:54,400
Speaker 1: thirty percent of national income goes overwhelmingly to the richest

1623
01:22:54,400 --> 01:22:57,240
Speaker 1: people in the country, and just like getting the government's

1624
01:22:57,320 --> 01:23:02,040
Speaker 1: fingers in that particular, you know high and you know,

1625
01:23:02,400 --> 01:23:04,280
Speaker 1: you could do it for social security, or you could

1626
01:23:04,320 --> 01:23:08,400
Speaker 1: do a universal basic dividend like my friend Matt Brunnick proposes.

1627
01:23:09,400 --> 01:23:11,680
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't think these necessarily trade off. I

1628
01:23:11,680 --> 01:23:15,200
Speaker 1: would also raise the get rid of that peril tax cap,

1629
01:23:15,240 --> 01:23:18,200
Speaker 1: and that would I think shore up the social securities

1630
01:23:18,240 --> 01:23:21,720
Speaker 1: finances indefinitely as well. So you know we could do

1631
01:23:21,840 --> 01:23:24,120
Speaker 1: we could do both and and in fact boost social

1632
01:23:24,120 --> 01:23:27,439
Speaker 1: security benefits higher than they are now, which is probably

1633
01:23:27,520 --> 01:23:30,519
Speaker 1: a good idea. Do we have any examples of other

1634
01:23:30,600 --> 01:23:32,960
Speaker 1: nations you know that are able to do I know

1635
01:23:33,080 --> 01:23:35,280
Speaker 1: Norway has a good one, but again that's kind of

1636
01:23:35,360 --> 01:23:38,000
Speaker 1: oil related. Is there anybody on par with us that

1637
01:23:38,080 --> 01:23:43,000
Speaker 1: has a similar financing scheme? Yeah, I mean Norway's the

1638
01:23:43,000 --> 01:23:46,720
Speaker 1: big one. They own like one point three percent of

1639
01:23:46,760 --> 01:23:50,160
Speaker 1: all the stocks in the world, which is crazy when

1640
01:23:50,160 --> 01:23:54,479
Speaker 1: you think about small the country is. There are a

1641
01:23:54,520 --> 01:23:59,840
Speaker 1: lot of you know, petro states have them. Alaska. Alaska's

1642
01:24:00,040 --> 01:24:05,800
Speaker 1: probably the the single most relevant example I believe North

1643
01:24:05,880 --> 01:24:09,080
Speaker 1: Dakota has one as well. And as you say, you know,

1644
01:24:09,160 --> 01:24:12,519
Speaker 1: these these tend to come from from oil rents because

1645
01:24:12,720 --> 01:24:16,280
Speaker 1: the it's it's much more easily politically to do it

1646
01:24:16,320 --> 01:24:18,920
Speaker 1: that way, you know, because it's like the oil is not,

1647
01:24:19,320 --> 01:24:22,040
Speaker 1: you know, being created by a capitalist or something like

1648
01:24:22,080 --> 01:24:24,720
Speaker 1: that sort of you know, the heritage of everyone. But

1649
01:24:25,240 --> 01:24:30,040
Speaker 1: you know, the guy who set up Alaska's dividend thing,

1650
01:24:30,880 --> 01:24:34,240
Speaker 1: he tried that multiple times with different sources. He wanted

1651
01:24:34,280 --> 01:24:36,320
Speaker 1: to do it with fish taxes, and then he wanted

1652
01:24:36,320 --> 01:24:38,400
Speaker 1: to do it just with tax money. And there's no

1653
01:24:38,479 --> 01:24:44,800
Speaker 1: reason why you couldn't just use regular government money, you know,

1654
01:24:44,920 --> 01:24:46,760
Speaker 1: I mean that you know that buy is just as

1655
01:24:46,760 --> 01:24:49,679
Speaker 1: good as anything else. You know, it's just a question

1656
01:24:49,720 --> 01:24:53,639
Speaker 1: of getting the politics squared away. And you know, eight

1657
01:24:53,720 --> 01:24:57,280
Speaker 1: percentage points of investment return is is really that's a

1658
01:24:57,400 --> 01:24:59,800
Speaker 1: that's a huge you know, imagine being a Wall Street

1659
01:24:59,800 --> 01:25:02,760
Speaker 1: trad and you're looking at something like that. Just being

1660
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:05,160
Speaker 1: able to borrow at these rock bottom prices and invest

1661
01:25:05,160 --> 01:25:08,280
Speaker 1: in the market. I mean, you know, it's a total

1662
01:25:08,360 --> 01:25:12,519
Speaker 1: no brainer. Yeah, good point. Last question to you, Ryan.

1663
01:25:13,479 --> 01:25:16,240
Speaker 1: Part of why there's all this discussion now of social

1664
01:25:16,240 --> 01:25:18,360
Speaker 1: security and Medicare is because you have some in the

1665
01:25:18,360 --> 01:25:21,799
Speaker 1: Republican caucus who are once again back to floating cuts

1666
01:25:21,800 --> 01:25:26,439
Speaker 1: to quote unquote entitlement programs. Joe Biden seems a newly

1667
01:25:26,479 --> 01:25:28,599
Speaker 1: reformed man, but he has in the past been open

1668
01:25:28,640 --> 01:25:31,400
Speaker 1: to these cuts as well, including during the Obama administration

1669
01:25:31,439 --> 01:25:34,320
Speaker 1: when they floated insanely this grind bargain, which the only

1670
01:25:34,360 --> 01:25:36,160
Speaker 1: reason we didn't end up with it is basically because

1671
01:25:36,160 --> 01:25:38,120
Speaker 1: the Tea Party at the time was like, no, this

1672
01:25:38,160 --> 01:25:41,040
Speaker 1: doesn't even go far enough. So, you know, we have

1673
01:25:41,320 --> 01:25:44,120
Speaker 1: this debt sealing situation coming up where the Republicans are

1674
01:25:44,200 --> 01:25:46,720
Speaker 1: very committed to holding the country hostage in order to

1675
01:25:47,000 --> 01:25:50,400
Speaker 1: extract some sort of spending cuts, maybe with entitledment spending

1676
01:25:50,479 --> 01:25:54,000
Speaker 1: quote unquote, maybe in some other area. What is your

1677
01:25:54,080 --> 01:25:57,840
Speaker 1: level of confidence in the ability of this administration, led

1678
01:25:57,840 --> 01:25:59,960
Speaker 1: by Joe Biden, to sort of hold firm to their

1679
01:26:00,160 --> 01:26:02,360
Speaker 1: current position that we are not going to negotiate on

1680
01:26:02,400 --> 01:26:08,479
Speaker 1: the debt ceiling whatsoever. I am semi confident. You know,

1681
01:26:08,600 --> 01:26:12,040
Speaker 1: Biden's a party guy at the end of the day,

1682
01:26:12,360 --> 01:26:15,559
Speaker 1: and you know the party has totally come away from

1683
01:26:15,680 --> 01:26:20,000
Speaker 1: the position of Obama in twenty eleven, when as you say,

1684
01:26:20,040 --> 01:26:22,880
Speaker 1: he was putting like eight hundred billion dollars in Social

1685
01:26:22,920 --> 01:26:25,720
Speaker 1: Security and Medicare cuts on the table, you know, to

1686
01:26:25,800 --> 01:26:30,960
Speaker 1: give to the to the Tea Party. By twenty sixteen,

1687
01:26:31,000 --> 01:26:34,360
Speaker 1: Obama was proposing an increase in Social Security benefits, you know,

1688
01:26:34,400 --> 01:26:37,320
Speaker 1: pressed by Elizabeth Warren and other folks at Bernie Sanders

1689
01:26:37,320 --> 01:26:40,320
Speaker 1: as well. The other thing about Joe Biden, though, is

1690
01:26:40,360 --> 01:26:42,240
Speaker 1: he he tends to be a little bit of a

1691
01:26:42,280 --> 01:26:46,760
Speaker 1: flap jaw who just sort of say stuff without you know,

1692
01:26:46,960 --> 01:26:52,280
Speaker 1: really thinking it through. And I've heard from people inside

1693
01:26:52,320 --> 01:26:55,680
Speaker 1: the Congressional you know, staffers on the Hill are who

1694
01:26:55,720 --> 01:26:58,280
Speaker 1: are afraid that he'll just get to talking with the

1695
01:26:59,200 --> 01:27:04,240
Speaker 1: Republicans just randomly proposed some like big bargain. But you know,

1696
01:27:04,800 --> 01:27:07,439
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, social Security and Medicare

1697
01:27:07,479 --> 01:27:11,400
Speaker 1: are so popular, you know, Pupil from a couple of

1698
01:27:11,439 --> 01:27:14,200
Speaker 1: years ago said seventy four percent of Americans do not

1699
01:27:14,240 --> 01:27:16,639
Speaker 1: want social Security benefits to be cut. I think Biden

1700
01:27:16,760 --> 01:27:18,840
Speaker 1: is a savvy enough politician that he knows that that

1701
01:27:18,880 --> 01:27:21,559
Speaker 1: would be horribly unpopular and it would be a terrible

1702
01:27:21,640 --> 01:27:25,160
Speaker 1: precedent to give the Republicans anything in return for like

1703
01:27:25,240 --> 01:27:30,920
Speaker 1: holding the Global economy hostage, so you know, fingers crossed basically. Yeah, Well,

1704
01:27:31,040 --> 01:27:33,360
Speaker 1: especially when you have Trump actually already out there. I mean,

1705
01:27:33,400 --> 01:27:34,920
Speaker 1: this was one of the ways he broke rents with

1706
01:27:34,960 --> 01:27:37,599
Speaker 1: Republican orthodoxy in twenty sixteen, and he's already come out

1707
01:27:37,600 --> 01:27:39,680
Speaker 1: and said you should not put penty of cuts from

1708
01:27:39,720 --> 01:27:42,240
Speaker 1: Social Security Medicare on the table. So it'd be terrible

1709
01:27:42,280 --> 01:27:44,640
Speaker 1: position for Biden to be in going into reelective. He

1710
01:27:44,760 --> 01:27:47,360
Speaker 1: is up against Trump again to be to let Trump

1711
01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:49,800
Speaker 1: get to the left of you on those issues. Thank

1712
01:27:49,840 --> 01:27:52,320
Speaker 1: you for breaking all of this Downforce. We really appreciate Ryan.

1713
01:27:52,360 --> 01:27:56,840
Speaker 1: Thank you Ryan by pleasure. Absolutely, thank you guys so

1714
01:27:56,920 --> 01:27:58,720
Speaker 1: much for watching. Really appreciate it was man, it was

1715
01:27:58,760 --> 01:28:00,840
Speaker 1: fun show today. It was a long show. That's a

1716
01:28:00,840 --> 01:28:02,560
Speaker 1: lot to talk about. It always happens, and whenever we

1717
01:28:02,600 --> 01:28:04,479
Speaker 1: got to break stuff down, we got breaking news all

1718
01:28:04,520 --> 01:28:05,800
Speaker 1: of that. I hope you guys do it. Enjoyed the

1719
01:28:05,880 --> 01:28:09,280
Speaker 1: counterpoints yesterday, We certainly did. They did a phenomenal job.

1720
01:28:09,320 --> 01:28:12,400
Speaker 1: We've got great content, partner content specifically for everybody all

1721
01:28:12,400 --> 01:28:14,800
Speaker 1: throughout the weekend. Shout out to the previous subscribers who

1722
01:28:14,920 --> 01:28:17,280
Speaker 1: enable all of our work here possible. We just really

1723
01:28:17,360 --> 01:28:19,919
Speaker 1: couldn't do it without you, and especially with the discussions

1724
01:28:19,920 --> 01:28:22,280
Speaker 1: we're having right now Crystal new Said and logo and

1725
01:28:22,320 --> 01:28:24,400
Speaker 1: all this other stuff. It costs a lot of money,

1726
01:28:25,479 --> 01:28:27,679
Speaker 1: costs a hell of a lot of money, and literally

1727
01:28:27,720 --> 01:28:29,599
Speaker 1: the only way is because of all of you. So

1728
01:28:29,640 --> 01:28:32,080
Speaker 1: thank you all so so much for giving us that confidence.

1729
01:28:32,120 --> 01:28:34,080
Speaker 1: And we will see you all next week. Love you guys,

1730
01:28:34,080 --> 01:28:35,080
Speaker 1: have a wonderful weekend.