Speaker 1: Hey guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here,
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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot Com. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have
Speaker 1: an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Krystal. Indeed,
Speaker 1: we do a lot of interesting stuffs to talk about
Speaker 1: this morning, including we have a new Twitter files drop,
Speaker 1: this one courtesy of Lefong of The Intercept, looking at
Speaker 1: how left wing protesters were targeted by Big Pharma for censorship.
Speaker 1: So that is an interesting one. We also have some
Speaker 1: updates on exactly how the potential Republican primary field for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four is shaping up. Some very intriguing new
Speaker 1: developments there. Updates out of Ukraine, digging into what exactly
Speaker 1: we can expect as we head into the spring. This
Speaker 1: is a fascinating story. So chat GPT is freaking out
Speaker 1: a lot of university professors. They're sort of like upending
Speaker 1: their syllabus syllabi sillaby, I believe, yes, figuring out how
Speaker 1: to deal with this new technology. So we'll talk to
Speaker 1: you about that. We've also got a little more airline
Speaker 1: chaos and some insights into exactly what the hell happened
Speaker 1: with that groundstop. Previously, great guests on to talk to
Speaker 1: us about big food, something we have been digging into
Speaker 1: this year. But before we get to any of that,
Speaker 1: live show, Live show, put it up there on the screen,
Speaker 1: Paramount Theater, February third, Austin, Texas. At this point, you
Speaker 1: guys know the shpiel. The link for tickets is down
Speaker 1: in the description of this video and or the podcast
Speaker 1: if you are listening over there. We've got a great
Speaker 1: show plan for all of you. Don't miss it. Only
Speaker 1: a couple of tickets left. But with that, let's get
Speaker 1: to the Twitter files. This is a very important story,
Speaker 1: arguably one of the most important ones yet that has
Speaker 1: come out from the Twitter file. Has been waiting a
Speaker 1: lot about COVID vaccines. How exactly all of that came together?
Speaker 1: Tweet Lefong of the intercept got full access. Just to
Speaker 1: preclude this. He says that he had no guidance or
Speaker 1: anything like that whatsoever. He had full scope in the
Speaker 1: ability to search the Twitter files and the archives himself.
Speaker 1: So let's put this up there on the screen. He's
Speaker 1: just to be clear. He searched them. He put in
Speaker 1: a request with the lawyer. The lawyer would provide the results.
Speaker 1: And he also indicated he tried to do some additional
Speaker 1: reporting to corroborate what he was given from a totally
Speaker 1: lay anybody who's saying, oh, he was handed this, etc.
Speaker 1: He says, Quote new Pace, a new piece from the
Speaker 1: Twitter files, how the pharmaceutical industry lobbied social media to
Speaker 1: shape content around vaccine policy. The push included direct pressure
Speaker 1: from Pfizer partner Biotech to censor activists demanding low cost
Speaker 1: generic vaccines for low income countries. In twenty twenty, it
Speaker 1: was clear that the pandemic would require rapid innovation. Early on,
Speaker 1: there was a push to make that solution equitable in
Speaker 1: international partnership to share ideas, technology, and new forms of
Speaker 1: medicine to solve the crisis. But global drug giants saw
Speaker 1: the crisis as an opportunity for unprecedented profit behind closed doors,
Speaker 1: Pharma launched a massive lobbying blitz to crush any effort
Speaker 1: to share patents or ip for new COVID related medicine,
Speaker 1: including therapeutics and vaccines. The lobbying group that represents biopharma,
Speaker 1: including Moderna and Pfiser, wrote to the newly elected Biden
Speaker 1: administration demanding any US government sanctioned country attempting to violate
Speaker 1: patent rights and create generic, low cost COVID medicine or vaccines,
Speaker 1: which brings us to Twitter. The global lobbying blitz included
Speaker 1: direct pressure on social media. Biotech, which developed Pfizer's vaccine,
Speaker 1: reached out to Twitter to request that Twitter directly censor
Speaker 1: of users tweeting at them to ask for generic, low
Speaker 1: costs vaccines. The reps responded quickly, and it was backed
Speaker 1: up by the German government and a lobbyist in Europe
Speaker 1: specifically asked the content moderation to censor the accounts of Pfiser,
Speaker 1: Astrosenica and of activist hashtags. The potential fake accounts that
Speaker 1: Twitter monitored for protesting Pfiser were actually real people. He
Speaker 1: has one of those included of those he actually spoke to.
Speaker 1: This gentleman. It's a seventy four year old retired bricklayer
Speaker 1: in the United Kingdom. It's not yet clear what exactly
Speaker 1: the actions that Twitter took on this particular quest. Several
Speaker 1: employees actually said in subsequent messages that none of the
Speaker 1: activism constituted abuse, but that the company continued to quote
Speaker 1: monitor tweets. Additionally, Pfeiser and Maderna's lobbying group fully funded
Speaker 1: a quote special content moderation campaign which was designed called
Speaker 1: the Public Goods Project and worked with Twitter to set
Speaker 1: content moderation specifically around quote COVID misinformation. They spent some
Speaker 1: one point two million dollars on the campaign, according to
Speaker 1: their own tax firm. The PGP campaign, which called Stronger,
Speaker 1: helped Twitter create content moderation bots, select which public health
Speaker 1: accounts got verification, helped crowdsource content takedowns, and many of
Speaker 1: the tweets that they were focused on some were genuinely
Speaker 1: like vaccine misinformation around micro trips, but others were in
Speaker 1: a much grayer area, including vaccine passports, vaccine mandates, policies
Speaker 1: that coerce vaccination, and Finally, the Maderna campaign included direct
Speaker 1: regular emails actually with lists of tweets compiled by this
Speaker 1: lobbying organization to takedown and others to verify an example
Speaker 1: specifically of one of those emails included in the correspondence.
Speaker 1: I mean, overall, Crystal, I don't know how you can't
Speaker 1: say that this is one of the most evil things
Speaker 1: yet that we have seen from big pharma. Like look,
Speaker 1: even if you you know, dispute or whatever on the vaccine,
Speaker 1: they clearly got together to try and make it so
Speaker 1: that any discussion of low cost generic therapeutics ivermectin obviously
Speaker 1: comes to mind efficacy regards wordless. At the time, it
Speaker 1: was certainly up for debate, certainly along with generic low
Speaker 1: cost vaccines that were trying to be utilized by third
Speaker 1: world countries with generic pharmaceutical infrastructure like India, Pakistan and Bungladesh,
Speaker 1: and specifically these companies to protect their own bottom line
Speaker 1: profit with US government developed technology, worked with Twitter in
Speaker 1: order to censor any discussion around That's something you cared
Speaker 1: about quite a bit at the time. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: we covered this quite extensively, and part of what we
Speaker 1: covered was the fact that the pharmaceutical companies were out
Speaker 1: and out lying about what the impact of having you know,
Speaker 1: no patents and the ability of other countries to be
Speaker 1: able to manufacture these what that impact would be, and
Speaker 1: their capability to be able to achieve that. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were saying, oh, no, it's not possible, they don't
Speaker 1: have the technology to do it. And meanwhile, there was
Speaker 1: reporting in a number of outlets of like, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's a factory sitting here ready that could spin up
Speaker 1: millions of doses at low cost. They just need the recipe,
Speaker 1: They just need the patents lifted in or to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. Was any of that Big Pharma
Speaker 1: misinformation flagged or taken down? No, it was not. And
Speaker 1: that's part of what Lee lays out. If you put
Speaker 1: up this next piece up on the screen and is
Speaker 1: right up here for the intercept about how exactly this
Speaker 1: all went down. This public goods project that was funded
Speaker 1: by Big Pharma. Pharma said, oh, they just had a
Speaker 1: broad mandate. Anything they saw that was misinformation they were
Speaker 1: meant to flag. Well, I mean, first of all, it's
Speaker 1: problematic that any of these groups has special access to
Speaker 1: start with, So let's begin with that. But then when
Speaker 1: you dig into what they were flagging, did they ever
Speaker 1: in a single instance flag, the misinformation and the lies
Speaker 1: that were coming from big pharma. Of course not, but
Speaker 1: there was this effort to silence activists who were pushing
Speaker 1: for low cost generic vaccines worldwide. And listen, you know,
Speaker 1: all of these things exist on a spectrum. So I
Speaker 1: don't think any of the should be censored. But there
Speaker 1: are better and worse arguments that can be made for
Speaker 1: you know, things that are just out and out false. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's an argument to be Do I agree with that argument? No,
Speaker 1: But there's an argument to be made things that are
Speaker 1: in the gray areas Lee puts it about really policy debate.
Speaker 1: I mean, I actually don't think that there is a
Speaker 1: good argument that you can make about that. Something like
Speaker 1: activists who are trying to hold powerful actors to account
Speaker 1: and you're doing everything you can to silence them. That
Speaker 1: is just I mean, there is no argument anyone could
Speaker 1: make in good faith in that direction. Now, I do
Speaker 1: want to say, Lee points out it's not clear what
Speaker 1: actions Twitter did or did not take in response to
Speaker 1: these requests, but he had a quote from a guy
Speaker 1: named Nick Dearden from Global Justice Now about these efforts
Speaker 1: to silence activists on lifting vaccine patents in particular, and
Speaker 1: I thought he made a good point. He said, listen,
Speaker 1: to try and stifle digital dissent during a pandemic, when
Speaker 1: tweets and emails are some of the only forms of protest,
Speaker 1: of vail to those locked in their homes is deeply sinister.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a great point. These sorts of
Speaker 1: efforts at any time are deeply sinister, but especially at
Speaker 1: a time when you're limited in the forms of protest,
Speaker 1: you're able to ultimately make that's all we had at
Speaker 1: the time, I mean, and even today. You know the
Speaker 1: idea that one of the reasons that Twitter even matters,
Speaker 1: why do we cover it for you good people over there,
Speaker 1: is because it has a massive impact on the debate,
Speaker 1: on the way that public health authorities are thinking. It's
Speaker 1: like a glee It's like a glass view into exactly
Speaker 1: the hive mind of whatever the establishment is thinking. Being
Speaker 1: able to penetrate that hive mind is deeply important. And
Speaker 1: I will you know, we can't brush aside even the
Speaker 1: policy debate because you have to consider this, which is
Speaker 1: vaccine mandates have a direct, you know, bottom line benefit
Speaker 1: to these vacs, to these vaccine manufacturers if they are
Speaker 1: going to create COVID misinformation policy, against vaccine passports, against
Speaker 1: vaccine mandates, and they're specifically advocating against policy which would
Speaker 1: impact their bottom line. They look, all of this could
Speaker 1: have been easily elaided. We could have probably had a
Speaker 1: much better conversation if there was no profit even to
Speaker 1: be had by the company, right, Okay, so that's number one.
Speaker 1: So if profit is going to be introduced, then you
Speaker 1: cannot be colluding with the Digital town Square in order
Speaker 1: to make sure that you were taking off anything, even
Speaker 1: policy that you claim was in the best interests of
Speaker 1: your patients, your customers, really your customers, that's what all
Speaker 1: of us are whenever you're interjecting yourself directly into a
Speaker 1: policy debate. So I find this entirely despicable all the
Speaker 1: way around. I really do believe this might be one
Speaker 1: of the most important Twitter files aside from the very
Speaker 1: first ones around FBI and government censorship. Why because it
Speaker 1: just shows you directly, like a multi billion dollar industry
Speaker 1: through the FEUs of government and lobbying campaigns, working with
Speaker 1: these people to create the rules. The rules are everything.
Speaker 1: That's the game in which all of us get to play,
Speaker 1: and it's a game that we don't have even a
Speaker 1: say of how it is, and I've never seen a
Speaker 1: more perfect example of how systems can be rigged. And
Speaker 1: you also have to take it. I think it even
Speaker 1: stepped back further from there, which is what does a
Speaker 1: true and honest, open COVID debate look like outside of
Speaker 1: vaccine profits. We really have no idea, like how much
Speaker 1: closer does paxlovid and therapeutics come to the fort Do
Speaker 1: we even have discussions around vaccine mandates? I mean in
Speaker 1: terms of the license for these doctors and others to
Speaker 1: not feel silenced in putting out alternative therapies or really
Speaker 1: just all kinds of experimentation, which frank again, is what
Speaker 1: you want in the middle of a public health crisis.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what that looks like, but I
Speaker 1: think we can be fairly certain that this same regime
Speaker 1: existed on Instagram. I know for sure anytime I used
Speaker 1: to post anything about anything about COVID on instat even
Speaker 1: to this day, actually still get flagged. My account also
Speaker 1: hasn't gotten any followers al both of our accounts and
Speaker 1: suspiciously kind of tracked, And I think there's no there.
Speaker 1: We have to suspect that it had some sort of impact,
Speaker 1: I think, on all the tech companies, and this is
Speaker 1: just a clear view into what that looks like. Crystal.
Speaker 1: I think this one is so important is because, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: we're about to cover another story about the vaccines and
Speaker 1: new data raising new questions. Mark like, science isn't just
Speaker 1: a thing where it's like Okay, you get an answer
Speaker 1: and that's it and it's over. End of story from
Speaker 1: one study. I mean, this was an incredibly fluid changing
Speaker 1: situation where you had new strains developing, you had a
Speaker 1: variety of vaccines, you had different demographic cohorts, and what
Speaker 1: might be right for one demographic may not be right
Speaker 1: for another one. You layer on top of that a
Speaker 1: very fraught policy debate, entirely legitimate whether whatever position you know,
Speaker 1: you personally agreed with, I think the balancing of you know,
Speaker 1: individual freedom and community responsibility. This was complex and entirely
Speaker 1: legitimate source of debate. So for these gigantic companies to
Speaker 1: feel like they had any role or say in defining
Speaker 1: the parameters of that debate, in being the arbiters of
Speaker 1: what the medical facts were when things were very fluid
Speaker 1: and very much still in debate over some of the
Speaker 1: most contentious issues. You can see how this was one
Speaker 1: of the most problematic roles that Twitter and other social
Speaker 1: media companies ultimately filled. Yeah. Absolutely, that's actually a good segue.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the second part here, and let's gohea
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen. This has
Speaker 1: been a big discussion in terms of COVID vaccination policy,
Speaker 1: specifically with respect to the bivalent boosters and the current
Speaker 1: recommendation of the CDC and the US government that you
Speaker 1: go ahead and get a fourth or a fifth booster.
Speaker 1: So currently there has been a quote flag signal. The
Speaker 1: CDC and FDA have announced on Friday that the surveillance
Speaker 1: system flagged a possible link between the new Phizer biotech
Speaker 1: bivalent COVID nineteen vaccine and strokes in people that are
Speaker 1: aged sixty five and over, specifically in the first twenty
Speaker 1: one day period, raising a question in the surveillance mechanism
Speaker 1: of whether that stroke risk was elevated as opposed to
Speaker 1: day's twenty two to forty four post vaccination. According to
Speaker 1: the CDC website, this is specifically from the CDC's own
Speaker 1: data for everybody including YouTube who was listening out there.
Speaker 1: CDC's vaccine safety data link met the criteria, warranting further
Speaker 1: investigation into whether the bivalen peiser vaccine led to a
Speaker 1: higher risk of a schemic stroke, which occurs when arteries
Speaker 1: pumping blood to the brain are blocked by a blood clot.
Speaker 1: Both Pfizer and Biotech said in a statement quote, there
Speaker 1: is no evidence to conclude a schemic stroke is associated
Speaker 1: with the use of the company's COVID nineteen vaccines. To
Speaker 1: also be clear, immediately afterwards, the CDC put out a
Speaker 1: statement let's go to the next one up here, please,
Speaker 1: where they say that it is quote very unlikely that
Speaker 1: the booster carries a stroke risk after launching a review. However,
Speaker 1: that came just twenty four hours after all of this.
Speaker 1: Why does any of this matter? This is a perfect
Speaker 1: example of why lack of censorship around discussion around these
Speaker 1: topics is very important, specifically with regards to the bivalent
Speaker 1: booster vaccine. Like you can even put the original vaccine aside.
Speaker 1: The case for the by valent booster was that it
Speaker 1: would pacifically target omicron and provides you better protection. We
Speaker 1: now know from a host of studies that have been
Speaker 1: done independently, if you are questioning this. I've done a
Speaker 1: monologue on it. Doctor Vine Pissad, who we've had on
Speaker 1: the show, is written about this extensively. There is no
Speaker 1: difference in the amount of coverage that the bivalent booster
Speaker 1: provides people. Now, that doesn't mean necessarily that if you're old,
Speaker 1: or if you're obese, or you have a pre existing
Speaker 1: health condition and concentrational with your physician, that it may
Speaker 1: not be a good idea to get it because COVID
Speaker 1: could be particularly bad for you. But to then say,
Speaker 1: as we have seen now multiple universities and colleges mandate
Speaker 1: the young people receive in some cases a third or
Speaker 1: a fourth shot just to be able to step foot
Speaker 1: on campus is totally absurd whenever you consider even the
Speaker 1: small risk signals that can be in there around mahrek carditis.
Speaker 1: And I think discussion you were having right now, christ
Speaker 1: or you and I are having right here with this
Speaker 1: right now, we know that it's trepidacious even in the
Speaker 1: current environment, and that's exactly what the problem is like.
Speaker 1: As you said, look, you know these things change in
Speaker 1: terms of the vaccine signal and its efficacy and all
Speaker 1: of that. It was one thing when they released it,
Speaker 1: and then the virus changed, and then well, it was
Speaker 1: a whole other discussion around lack of prevention, what it
Speaker 1: means can stop transmission. We have to have the ability
Speaker 1: to have an open and honest conversation because I could
Speaker 1: say with certainty that though the way that the vaccine
Speaker 1: was sold is not how it ended up working out.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was malevalent, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was just lack of data. I'd like to
Speaker 1: presume good faith in general. But the point is is
Speaker 1: that even having that discussion, I remember very vividly at
Speaker 1: the time, it was very difficult, you know, in order
Speaker 1: to have with folks, especially after I got my quote
Speaker 1: breakthrough case and I was like, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: was like, I got some questions around what exactly is
Speaker 1: going on here? And that's fine, that's normal. And also
Speaker 1: reflected in the data, only four to five percent of
Speaker 1: Americas have even received the bivalent booster after the US
Speaker 1: government requested everybody get it. I mean, if ninety five
Speaker 1: percent of people are telling you no to a quote
Speaker 1: unquote government advice, that also shows a collapse of faith
Speaker 1: in the overall architecture. I think people just have a
Speaker 1: lot of questions about how much they're really gained from
Speaker 1: this one, yes, like does this really is this really
Speaker 1: worth it? And I think those questions are entirely legitimate.
Speaker 1: A couple things to note about this early signal number one,
Speaker 1: It is exactly that it's an early signal for further investigation.
Speaker 1: It's not definitive or anything close to that. So I
Speaker 1: think that's important to point out. They actually didn't see
Speaker 1: this same warning signal in the Maderna vaccine. So if
Speaker 1: you have concerns and you were thinking about getting the vaccine,
Speaker 1: perhaps go with the Maderna one until they sort all
Speaker 1: of this out. And then the other piece that I
Speaker 1: think is important here that you're pointing to is the
Speaker 1: problem with the public health officials the whole way was
Speaker 1: that they really didn't trust the American people to actually
Speaker 1: be presented with the data and the facts as it is,
Speaker 1: whether it was with regards to face masks or heard
Speaker 1: immunity or a number of other things, and be able
Speaker 1: to cope with that in a reasonable way. And because
Speaker 1: they sort of we'll say, massage the facts and at
Speaker 1: times outright lied to the American people, then that did
Speaker 1: degrade the trust the American people, and it became a
Speaker 1: vicious cycle because then when the people didn't do what
Speaker 1: the public health officials thought they should do because they
Speaker 1: didn't trust the public health officials, then there was even
Speaker 1: more of an effort to Okay, well we got to
Speaker 1: clamp down even more and we can't trust this trust
Speaker 1: these people even less, and it led to this sort
Speaker 1: of vicious feedback loop. So what we know at this
Speaker 1: point is number one, there's this early signal that they're
Speaker 1: going to investigate. And number two, this was also you know,
Speaker 1: something we covered here and doctor Pisad talked about and
Speaker 1: you talked about as well, Soccer, is that these uh,
Speaker 1: these particular boosters received very limited testing before they were
Speaker 1: pushed down. Now that's not a different protocol than what
Speaker 1: is normally used for boosters or other sort of like
Speaker 1: related yeah, flu vaccines and other things like that. It
Speaker 1: was the standard procedure. But I think it's worth as
Speaker 1: we're having all of these things stress tests, to look
Speaker 1: at the procedures and say was this appropriate here, is
Speaker 1: it appropriate in other instances? Or is this creating unnecessary
Speaker 1: risks that don't make sense. Am I the only guy
Speaker 1: who's shocked that all they need is to show some
Speaker 1: increase and eight mice in order to approve flu vaccine
Speaker 1: for everybody. I mean, honestly, I was, look, maybe there
Speaker 1: are much smarter doctors and immunologists than me that can
Speaker 1: tell me about why exactly that's actually a totally fine procedure, etc.
Speaker 1: But I mean, one thing that we all learned from
Speaker 1: this our interview. Actually, I always recall with John Abramson
Speaker 1: specifically talking about how peer reviewed studies are based on
Speaker 1: data provided by pharmaceutical companies, and how they can even
Speaker 1: hold back anything that they don't want necessarily to be
Speaker 1: peer reviewed. And so that means that even the quote
Speaker 1: peer reviewers in Science or Cell Journal or any of
Speaker 1: these other precidious publications, they don't even have access to
Speaker 1: the raw systems. I mean, the level of control that
Speaker 1: I think that many of these companies had it was
Speaker 1: one in which we all kind of presumed good faith
Speaker 1: ish in general, people trust the doctors. The doctors like,
Speaker 1: hey should get the flu vaccine. I'm like, okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think about it. They're like, but
Speaker 1: then you know I'm reading this. I'm like, well hold on.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm like, what's going on here, it's like,
Speaker 1: is this how they all work? I'm what is actual efficacy?
Speaker 1: And I think the crowdsourcing of questioning all of this
Speaker 1: has made a lot of these people really uncomfortable because
Speaker 1: it's shaken that trust. And then on an individual level,
Speaker 1: there are many doctors out there. I'm sure. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's a pain in the ass. You know, I know
Speaker 1: many doctors watch our show. I'm sure it's a paint
Speaker 1: whenever people come to people like me or like, oh
Speaker 1: what do you mean by that? Well, how does this work?
Speaker 1: Et cetera. But you know, overall, like this is it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily your fault. It's the fault of you know,
Speaker 1: the people at the very top. But it's still a
Speaker 1: problem that we all have to deal with. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's a very important discussion topic.
Speaker 1: This is one that will continue to watch. We're can
Speaker 1: try and have doctor Pisad back here on the show
Speaker 1: just to explain everything that is going on with regards
Speaker 1: to policy and and all of this and why it
Speaker 1: even matters. And the point is, though, is that from
Speaker 1: the first segment you have to be able to have
Speaker 1: these discussions because otherwise, I mean the breakdown right now
Speaker 1: is social trust is catastrophic. Another key doctor prosadpoint. Already
Speaker 1: people are wholesale rejecting the MMR vaccine for their kids.
Speaker 1: Eaesels is out of control through the roof right now
Speaker 1: because they don't trust vaccines period as a result of
Speaker 1: a lot of the COVID policy. You could say they're idiots,
Speaker 1: but you know that's not going to change their mind.
Speaker 1: So we got to come to something here or we're
Speaker 1: going to have even more catastrophic public health problems as
Speaker 1: we go forward. So at the same time, there's a
Speaker 1: lot unfolding on the political front as the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four field is starting to shape up on the Republican side.
Speaker 1: Interesting moment over on Fox News, of course, we've been
Speaker 1: covering many others as well. Is Trump in a week
Speaker 1: in state is vulnerable to a primary challenge from of
Speaker 1: course Sarah Hugby Standers, wh's actually now governor of Arkansas
Speaker 1: and was previously Press secretary for President Trump and you know,
Speaker 1: very like well known face of the Trump administration. Let's
Speaker 1: say she got asked whether she is supporting former President
Speaker 1: Trump for twenty twenty four and she would not say,
Speaker 1: take a listen. Your bio on your official pagees Governor
Speaker 1: describes you as a quot trusted confidante of President Trump.
Speaker 1: Have you talked to him about his twenty four run?
Speaker 1: Will you endorse him in that? My focus right now
Speaker 1: has been on twenty twenty two, winning the election in November,
Speaker 1: preparing through transition, and getting ready to take offices I
Speaker 1: did this past week. I love the President, have a
Speaker 1: great relationship with him. I know heurt country would be
Speaker 1: infinitely better off if he was in office right now
Speaker 1: instead of Joe Biden. But right now, my focus isn't
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. It's focusing here in Arkansas and doing
Speaker 1: what we can to empower the people. What kind of
Speaker 1: timeline would you have for making a decision? Do you
Speaker 1: want to see who else gets into the primary? Will
Speaker 1: you wait for the nominee? Again, my focus isn't on
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. It's on what we can deliver in
Speaker 1: this legislative session. So just total stonewall, won't say. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you Christle, I worked with her for a
Speaker 1: long time. That lady knows exactly what she's saying. She
Speaker 1: parses everywhere, single word. You could say what you want
Speaker 1: I actually think she was quite good at her job.
Speaker 1: She was put in a pretty impossible situation. She was
Speaker 1: one of the only Trump people to ever face the press,
Speaker 1: if you'll remember, in those regular press briefings, and she
Speaker 1: was Look, she chooses every word extraordinary carefully. The fact
Speaker 1: that she didn't say yes, absolutely and affirmatively tells you
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot about what's happening. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: also wonder if Asa Hutchinson, who's a former governor of
Speaker 1: Arkansas senator of Arkansas, he has basically said he wants
Speaker 1: to run. And you know, I mean, Asa Hutchinson is
Speaker 1: a minor figure in terms of the national political scene,
Speaker 1: but Sarah Huckby Sanders is now governor of Arkansas, and
Speaker 1: those local political connections matter a lot. So I wonder
Speaker 1: if that isn't also a factor in her you know,
Speaker 1: holding her fire and you know, being unwilling to come
Speaker 1: out full throated for Trump. But whatever is going on
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, that is not a good sign for Trump.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, there are some interesting other things
Speaker 1: happening in this race. Axios had a report about how
Speaker 1: the field is kind of frozen at the moment as
Speaker 1: people wait to see what happens with Ron DeSantis, who,
Speaker 1: of course is the most credible challenger to Trump. At
Speaker 1: this point, they say, questions about his political resilience and
Speaker 1: fears of going toe to toe with former President Trump
Speaker 1: have all but frozen the twenty twenty four Republican field,
Speaker 1: delaying most of the leading prospects timelines for entering the race.
Speaker 1: Despite dominating polling among Republicans looking for a Trump alternative,
Speaker 1: DeSantis has not been tested in the cleague lights of
Speaker 1: a presidential election. His Republican detractors see him as a
Speaker 1: paper tiger who lacks the charisma necessary of a national campaign.
Speaker 1: Scott Jennings, Republican strategist affiliated with Mitch McConnell, says everyone
Speaker 1: not named Desantas is having a hard time figure out
Speaker 1: their way around him, so they're waiting for him to
Speaker 1: screw up or fade, but so far he's doing neither.
Speaker 1: Another advisor said that no one wants to take flings
Speaker 1: and arrows from Trump. Where they get in earlier or
Speaker 1: late isn't going to matter if they have a built
Speaker 1: in network of donors. DeSantis himself unlikely to make a
Speaker 1: final decision about running until at least May, after Florida's
Speaker 1: legislative session ends, so you can see the bind that
Speaker 1: they're in because they don't want to be the one
Speaker 1: to jump in and take all of Trump's fire early on.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, you know they're kind of
Speaker 1: waiting to see, Okay, what does the Santis do. Let's
Speaker 1: let him get in, Let's let him take the fire
Speaker 1: and see how he fares, and maybe we can sort
Speaker 1: of sleep slip in while all of that commotion is
Speaker 1: going on and avoid scrutinies. So I think the basic
Speaker 1: dynamics here are people are still afraid of Trump, bottom line,
Speaker 1: and they're afraid to come in and be one on
Speaker 1: one against him and go toe to toe with him
Speaker 1: right now and take whatever he has to throw at them.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a telling sign as well. I
Speaker 1: think it's a correct move too. I mean this is
Speaker 1: also why Chrystal Ifie remember after the mar A Lago raid,
Speaker 1: we were like, look, if you're Trump, you should have
Speaker 1: announced for president, Like right now, here are the party
Speaker 1: entirely united against him. The fact too, that you can
Speaker 1: take such a massive beating in the midterms, which was
Speaker 1: a direct repudiation of Trump, stopped the steal not necessarily
Speaker 1: like trump Ism or whatever whatever that means. It's such
Speaker 1: a thing. But look, I mean, clearly it was not
Speaker 1: good for Trump. And you can still announce your candidacy
Speaker 1: and now have not a single person jump in against you. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of power. And you know, I was
Speaker 1: reading on my friend Gabby Orr, she now works over
Speaker 1: at CNN. We forgive her and what she writes, she's
Speaker 1: a very good reporter, and what she specifically focuses on
Speaker 1: the GOP and the twenty twenty four and she was like, look,
Speaker 1: at this point, if you look back at the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen cycle, you had multiple candidates who had jumped all
Speaker 1: into the race on the GOP and the Democratic side too.
Speaker 1: If you consider after twenty twenty, so what is happening?
Speaker 1: We are seeing a total freeze out. And the longer
Speaker 1: that it goes, I mean, it's not a joke to
Speaker 1: just run for president. You need to raise millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: you have to hire a bunch of people, you need
Speaker 1: to get a ground game together. Then you need to
Speaker 1: come up with a strategy from Iowa and New Hat
Speaker 1: whatever the calendar exactly will be in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: it actually does take about two years to actually do properly.
Speaker 1: And here's the other thing. There's been no exploratory committees
Speaker 1: that have been for Ron DeSantis or any of those people.
Speaker 1: Sure they might have outside super packs and all of that,
Speaker 1: but it's not even close to the level of what
Speaker 1: it looks like when somebody's actually going to run, and
Speaker 1: it's because they're afraid, you know, their infrastructure. Is one
Speaker 1: of those where it's going to just be very difficult
Speaker 1: to take on Trump, especially when you're the it's like
Speaker 1: a first out the gate problem. The first person is
Speaker 1: going to draw the most amount of iron and you
Speaker 1: have not yet seen any enough upside potential to actually
Speaker 1: challenge him. Yeah, we saw those comments right after the
Speaker 1: midterms where DeSantis got asked about, you know, the record
Speaker 1: and Trump and the midterms and whatever, and he had
Speaker 1: that comment that was like, we'll look at the scoreboard.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's all he said. And I think that's
Speaker 1: also very telling because again, look, the problem for DeSantis
Speaker 1: is you know, him on his own doing his thing
Speaker 1: and writing the culture war outrage of the day that
Speaker 1: has served him very very well. That is a very
Speaker 1: very different thing than actually going up against Trump. And
Speaker 1: being able to pull that off clearly his real life.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's just no other way to judge what's
Speaker 1: happening right now. And the other thing is, look, maybe
Speaker 1: Trump is going to hit another really difficult maybe if
Speaker 1: he gets indicted, maybe that's another low point for him.
Speaker 1: But to be honest with you, I actually think that
Speaker 1: ball would bounce in the other direction of kind of
Speaker 1: strengthening his hand, because again you can say, like, they're
Speaker 1: not coming after me and it's a witch hunt whatever.
Speaker 1: And just like when the raid of mar A Lago happened,
Speaker 1: many of the would be challengers will be forced to
Speaker 1: kind of bend the knee. He was in this uniquely
Speaker 1: vulnerable moment right after the midterms. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: as clear a repudiation of him as it could possibly be.
Speaker 1: It was as a sort of bolstering of DeSantis as
Speaker 1: it could possibly be. And the fact that they didn't
Speaker 1: take that moment of unique vulnerability for Trump and do
Speaker 1: anything with it may end up being a real missed opportunity.
Speaker 1: But again, listen, I'm just guessing. Who knows. Like I said,
Speaker 1: maybe there is more to come out, Maybe there's more
Speaker 1: that weakens him. You do see Sarah Huckabee, Sanders and
Speaker 1: others reluctant to actually affirmatively get on board. That is
Speaker 1: a sign of weakness. He didn't move any votes really
Speaker 1: in the whole Kevin McCarthy speaker saga, that also is
Speaker 1: a sign of weakness. But I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: they kind of let the moment pass without wounding him
Speaker 1: in a way that would make it possible to ultimately
Speaker 1: take him out. At the same time, Trump is potentially
Speaker 1: using some of his proxies to go after DeSantis in
Speaker 1: a way that's kind of interesting. So Christy Noam, who
Speaker 1: is governor of South Dakota and has other her own
Speaker 1: potential presidential or vice presidential ambitions, has been taking some
Speaker 1: interesting shots at DeSantis. Let's put this up on the screen.
Speaker 1: So this was sort of interesting. So the headline here
Speaker 1: at Daily Bees inside the one way feud between Ron
Speaker 1: DeSantis and Christy Noam. Basically earlier this month, No One's
Speaker 1: press secretary kind of out and nowhere took this shot
Speaker 1: at DeSantis over his stance on abortion. So this was
Speaker 1: for an article in a National Review ostensibly about quote
Speaker 1: the transgender lobby's outsize influence in South Dakota. And within
Speaker 1: this article that again was about something completely different. Her
Speaker 1: press secretary said Governor noahm was the only governor in
Speaker 1: America on national television defending the Dobbs decision. Where was
Speaker 1: Governor DeSantis hiding behind a fifteen week ban? Does he
Speaker 1: believe that fourteen week old babies don't have a right
Speaker 1: to live? Corty is three GOP sources behind the scenes
Speaker 1: knowledge Noam has Trump's blessing to take some shots across
Speaker 1: the Desanta's bow, and Noam's efforts have not been going
Speaker 1: unnoticed as Trump continues filling out his VP shortlist. So
Speaker 1: their reading of this situation is basically, she wants to
Speaker 1: be Trump's VP. She's sort of doing some of his
Speaker 1: dirty work right now, taking shots at Desanti's over a
Speaker 1: potential vulnerability with him with the Republican base, which is
Speaker 1: he is not gone certainly as far as a Mike
Speaker 1: Pence or Christy Noam in terms of wanting to ban
Speaker 1: abortion altogether, smarter positioning in terms of general electorate could
Speaker 1: be challenging for him with the Republican primary electorate ultimately,
Speaker 1: so some interesting like proxy fighting going on there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know how that one works. Out. I really don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, with no, she is a narcissist. She's just
Speaker 1: still very upset that she's been attacked by a lot
Speaker 1: of the GOP base, and she always wanted to be
Speaker 1: the DeSantis figure that DeSantis is right now. A lot
Speaker 1: of that at frankly just political talent. But you know,
Speaker 1: you also look at what she's doing and clearly the
Speaker 1: proxy war itself, even that you know, it's all under
Speaker 1: the radar, it's all just like veiled barbs. It's like
Speaker 1: at a certain point you got to come out and
Speaker 1: just do it, just say it. I think at the
Speaker 1: same ultimately this is all just a sign of Trump's strength,
Speaker 1: like he is the single north star, the overall orientation
Speaker 1: he is winning. You know, by a mind we have
Speaker 1: this poll, we can put it up there on the
Speaker 1: screen from Morning Console for all the polls that show
Speaker 1: DeSantis doing well. I mean, I wouldn't I wouldn't hate
Speaker 1: to be DeSantis in this poll. But what does this
Speaker 1: show you for those who are watching Donald Trump for
Speaker 1: Morning Console latest want forty six percent of life Republican
Speaker 1: primary voters, Ron DeSantis thirty three percent, Mike Pence at nine,
Speaker 1: Liz Cheney at three, Nicky Haleott two, Ted Cruz at two,
Speaker 1: and then various other candidates below that one. So who
Speaker 1: would you rather be, honestly, I mean those top three
Speaker 1: are all the three I would I mean Pence I
Speaker 1: don't think has a chance in hell, but his nine
Speaker 1: percent does just show you the strength still of the
Speaker 1: evangelical base. If anything'd be good for Ron de Santas,
Speaker 1: if he jumped in because he wouldn't have to, then
Speaker 1: you know, go after the evangelical vote. However, with Trump himself,
Speaker 1: I mean, his level of strength is just so. It's
Speaker 1: so he's got such a sizeable portion with forty six percent. Now, look, clearly,
Speaker 1: Mike Pence has a little bit of strength there with
Speaker 1: the evangelicals. But Ron DeSantis the case is always very
Speaker 1: difficult to make with Trump at forty six percent. Sure
Speaker 1: we could see a scenario where Desanta is able to
Speaker 1: cobble together and get over fifty, but he'd have to
Speaker 1: be the only one that's in the race. Given how
Speaker 1: much narsis these people are, there's no way that's gonna happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you think they're just gonna all on their sword and
Speaker 1: be like, yes, Ron, you're the chosen one. Look at
Speaker 1: Kirsty No, She's like, no, it's my turn, Mike Pence, No,
Speaker 1: it's my turn, Nick Liz Cheney. I get, you know,
Speaker 1: good luck in that one. But the point is is
Speaker 1: that the individual is almost like a prisoner's dilemma. It's
Speaker 1: just always going to lead. I think to Trump's nomination
Speaker 1: could be wrong, could be totally wrong, but he's a
Speaker 1: lot of strength right now. Yeah. I think the fact
Speaker 1: that they're all waiting and too afraid to dip their
Speaker 1: toe in the water is very revealing. I'm actually talking
Speaker 1: to my monologue today about some very clear signs. Glenn
Speaker 1: Youngkin is planning to run and sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's not interested in Virginia politics, and Virginia governors
Speaker 1: can't run for second terms anyway. Now, he could potentially
Speaker 1: make a Senate bit or something like that, but he
Speaker 1: clearly has his eyes on the national prize. So he's
Speaker 1: another one who, you know, again, has sort of imagined
Speaker 1: himself since he was able to win in Virginia, which
Speaker 1: had become an increasingly blue state, that he might be
Speaker 1: he might be the one. So these people are not
Speaker 1: just going to ultimately go away. It is worth noting
Speaker 1: in that morning Tracker console, Christy Nooam is at zero percent,
Speaker 1: so exact play for VP might be the move for her.
Speaker 1: This is interesting and this actually tracks with the Christy
Speaker 1: Noam proxy war taking the shots at Disanta's over abortion.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump went on with David Brodie and got asked
Speaker 1: about evangelical voters and evangelical leaders, and he indicated that
Speaker 1: he felt some of those leaders, after he put through
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justices on the bench who ultimately were able
Speaker 1: to overturn Roe versus Wade, that some of them are
Speaker 1: showing a bit of disloyalty by not backing him immediately.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen to that. You were the ultimate fighter,
Speaker 1: the ultimate counterpuncher, for sure, and that makes me think
Speaker 1: of evangelicals why they loved you twice in those elections,
Speaker 1: and you announced when you announce your candidacy. At least
Speaker 1: as it stands now, some of these prominent evangelical leaders
Speaker 1: who backed you last time, they're not yet willing to commit,
Speaker 1: like Robert Jeffers is not some mothers. It seems like
Speaker 1: many of them are waiting to see how the field
Speaker 1: takes shape before back anyone. What is your message to them, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't really care. Look, that's a side of disloyalty.
Speaker 1: There's great disloyalty in the world of politics. And that's
Speaker 1: the side of disloyalty because nobody, as you know, and
Speaker 1: you would know better than anybody, because you do such
Speaker 1: a great job. Nobody has ever done more for right
Speaker 1: to life than Donald Trump. I put three Supreme Court
Speaker 1: justices who all voted, and they got something that they've
Speaker 1: been fighting for for sixty four years or many many years.
Speaker 1: But nobody thought they could win it. You know, they
Speaker 1: won Roe v. Wade. They won. They finally won, and
Speaker 1: I was a little disappointed because I thought they could
Speaker 1: have fought much harder during the election, during the twenty
Speaker 1: two election, because you know, they won, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them didn't fight or weren't really around to fight.
Speaker 1: And it did energize the Democrats, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the people that wanted and fought for years to get it,
Speaker 1: they sort of they were there protesting and doing what
Speaker 1: they could have done. But with all of that being said,
Speaker 1: there's nobody that's said more for the movement than I have.
Speaker 1: That's a very interesting answers loyalty that one's going to
Speaker 1: hit home. I think with a lot of these, a
Speaker 1: lot of these, especially after he came out and blamed
Speaker 1: pro lifers for the midterm result. Don't forget that. We
Speaker 1: covered that, I think a week or two ago. And look,
Speaker 1: I mean Trump, He's in an interesting spot where at
Speaker 1: the same time we shouldn't even evangelical leaders may not
Speaker 1: endorse him. Evangelical voters have always loved Trump. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is a huge thing on the evangelical like intelligencia right,
Speaker 1: They're like evangelical voters have abandoned their principles for their
Speaker 1: supportive trying in some cases. In twenty nineteen in Armored,
Speaker 1: they were some of the most enthusiastic people. Yeah, back Trump,
Speaker 1: will Trump's comments have a backtrack on them? I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, it really is one of those where without
Speaker 1: the Row versus way remainding on the ballot effectively with
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, where they still come out and you know,
Speaker 1: crawl across broken glass to vote for Trump, especially in
Speaker 1: a primary. It's difficult to say, but he does have
Speaker 1: a good case. He's like, I'm the one who delivered,
Speaker 1: not Mike Pensis. I've got him on the bench. Any
Speaker 1: of these people, I thought the way he framed these comments,
Speaker 1: especially when you match him together with what Christin Noam's
Speaker 1: press secretary said. Remember what she said was Governor Nohman
Speaker 1: was the only governor America on national television defending the
Speaker 1: Dobbs decision in kind of taking a shot at Ron DeSantis.
Speaker 1: And you can hear an echo of that in what
Speaker 1: Trump is saying here. He's like, I got it done,
Speaker 1: and then you all didn't defend it, and so where
Speaker 1: were you? The Democrats were way more aggressive, And so
Speaker 1: this is his own spin on what happened in the election,
Speaker 1: which of course, you know, denies any of his culpability
Speaker 1: in this situation, but also frames him as both a
Speaker 1: sort of like pro life warrior, but also blames people
Speaker 1: like Ron DeSantis who for not ultimately defending the decision
Speaker 1: once it came down. So I thought this was very
Speaker 1: I would guess that we're going to hear more of
Speaker 1: this line of attack from Trump of basically like, listen,
Speaker 1: I got the thing done you all wanted done, and
Speaker 1: then none of y'all went out in front of the
Speaker 1: cameras to ultimately defend it. You ran ahead, and of
Speaker 1: course we all know why because it was wildly unpopular,
Speaker 1: and so that's why there were very few Republicans anywhere
Speaker 1: who really wanted to touch it with a ten foot poll. Yes,
Speaker 1: pay very close attention because if mac Pens does end
Speaker 1: up running, you're going to be hearing this all day long,
Speaker 1: and a lot of this on conservative media. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and move on to Ukraine. Some interesting developments
Speaker 1: happening in Ukraine. There's long been a quote unquote Western
Speaker 1: tank taboo. Ukraine has always been very upset by this.
Speaker 1: They want armored tanks, armored vehicles, troop carriers and others
Speaker 1: provided by the US and by the West. And it
Speaker 1: seems that that taboo is breaking, not necessarily from the US,
Speaker 1: of which we are providing some armored fighting vehicles, but
Speaker 1: specifically the provision of tanks to Ukraine to be used
Speaker 1: in their upcome offensive provided by the British government. We
Speaker 1: have a little bit of voice over here. The British
Speaker 1: government put out a video where they were showcasing their tank.
Speaker 1: They had kind of a snarky tweet and they also
Speaker 1: put together like a compilation I guess of a tank
Speaker 1: being badass. It's the challenger too. I personally I love tanks.
Speaker 1: I think they're really cool. From their inception onward. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of discussion in the history of warfare
Speaker 1: around whether tanks were obsolete, I would say, or never obsolete.
Speaker 1: You can go look at the battlefield in Ukraine and
Speaker 1: why they want them at here. However, geopolitically, why does
Speaker 1: any of this matter, Because let's put this up there,
Speaker 1: Rishie Sunak and the Conservative government over there are making
Speaker 1: an affirmative choice to actually do two things. Number one
Speaker 1: provide obviously a couple of tanks to Ukraine. But number
Speaker 1: two is that these fourteen tanks are specifically being taken
Speaker 1: away from the fighting capability of the Western NATO stock
Speaker 1: something that the UK itself would use in battle if
Speaker 1: called to, instead of stuff that we mostly have in storage, weapons, ammunition,
Speaker 1: more things that can be resupplied much more easier. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's genius to figure out that the supply
Speaker 1: chain and creating a tank maintenance and all that is
Speaker 1: actually incredibly difficult. Part of the reason why many countries
Speaker 1: don't have the most advanced ones, even here our own
Speaker 1: Abrams tanks. The question around this is is this a
Speaker 1: symbolic gesture or is this going to make a major
Speaker 1: strategic difference. Time will tell. I've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: different military analysts. On the one hand, you got fourteen
Speaker 1: Challenger two tanks. That's decent firepower. But we have to
Speaker 1: talk about maintenance. What if one of them gets hit,
Speaker 1: one of them gets hit by a mind what I
Speaker 1: do you have the right mechanics to make sure these
Speaker 1: are highly specialized pieces of equipment, the electronics, all of that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Russians have a ton of materiall but a lot
Speaker 1: of their stuff has been breaking down. Clearly, Ukraine's been
Speaker 1: getting stuck in the mud, has not been utilized to
Speaker 1: its most effect. There's also a big discussion right now
Speaker 1: around tanks being provided by Poland. There's a big decision
Speaker 1: point actually for the German government because the Germans providing
Speaker 1: Poles with the tanks, and the Poles want to give
Speaker 1: those tanks to the Ukrainians, but they can't do it
Speaker 1: without the Germans. There was also a consternation in Germany
Speaker 1: right now because their defense minister actually just resigned yesterday,
Speaker 1: mostly over criticism of Ukraine. I'm not going to pretend
Speaker 1: to be an expert. A lot of it is the
Speaker 1: idea that she wasn't serious enough of a candidate to
Speaker 1: be in the job, though she was very trusted by
Speaker 1: the Chancellor. Overall, provides a big decision point also for
Speaker 1: the United States, for France, and for other Western countries
Speaker 1: which do have these tanks are they going to take
Speaker 1: stock of, you know, vehicles and other things are which
Speaker 1: are most would say are pretty critical to the readiness
Speaker 1: of the US military, the UK military and directly provide
Speaker 1: those to Ukraine on the battlefield. But the Ukrainians are
Speaker 1: hailing this as a major victory because the ability to
Speaker 1: have combined combined armed force combat and all that and
Speaker 1: move as a unit. This would lengthen their ability to
Speaker 1: break through in terms of Russian lines and take even
Speaker 1: more territory. Right now, they're more limited by how much
Speaker 1: they can walk. That's been something you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a reversion to pre Worldorld War two type warfare and
Speaker 1: a lot of the tactics that we developed for World
Speaker 1: War Two and kind of onward in terms of battlefield
Speaker 1: ones rely very much on tanks and armored vehicles in
Speaker 1: order to break through a line and then take as
Speaker 1: much territory of that as possible into the animust territory.
Speaker 1: So it's a significant decision regardless, because it could pressage
Speaker 1: even more tanks that go over to Ukraine. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's a real open question how much of a
Speaker 1: difference this makes on the battlefield. I think what is
Speaker 1: a lot clearer is a couple of things. Number One,
Speaker 1: you know, we continue to up the anti in terms
Speaker 1: of the types of weapons we are willing to ship.
Speaker 1: This was a non starter at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: six months ago. The idea of the you know, the
Speaker 1: the NATO Alliance ship anyone in the NATO Alliance shipping
Speaker 1: tanks was you know, something that was completely out of bounce.
Speaker 1: We also are training Ukrainians, which we're going to get
Speaker 1: to in a moment on our own Patriot missile system.
Speaker 1: This was also something that at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: conflict we're like, no, that's too far, It'd be too
Speaker 1: much of a provocation for Russia. So we have seen
Speaker 1: throughout this conflict the way we increase and increase and
Speaker 1: increase what we are willing to do step by step
Speaker 1: by step, and this is a particularly significant step that
Speaker 1: we and our allies in the UK are taking here.
Speaker 1: The other piece is, as you were pointing to Sagar
Speaker 1: And there was a guy named Jack Waddling, senior Research
Speaker 1: fellow for Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute,
Speaker 1: who described this as a hard fork in the road.
Speaker 1: Why because he writes, for months they have gifted equipment
Speaker 1: that they have held in storage. Now, although these donations
Speaker 1: have been expressed in dollar terms, few of them have
Speaker 1: incurred heavy financial cost to donors. As donations begin to
Speaker 1: push into critical fleets and stockpiles. However, Ukraine's partner's fees
Speaker 1: the need to invest in regenerating their capabilities as well
Speaker 1: as supporting Ukraine. Now, he is very much in favor
Speaker 1: of this, He says, in a challenging financial environment, they
Speaker 1: have tried to defer this decision, but if they want
Speaker 1: Ukrainian victory, then they can defer it no longer. But
Speaker 1: whether or not you agree with his analysis that this
Speaker 1: is the right thing to do, he said, we're now
Speaker 1: at this place where you're no longer just taking what
Speaker 1: you had in storage and sending it over, okay. And
Speaker 1: this also tracks with what Carlos del Toro, who's the
Speaker 1: Secretary of the Navy said and then had to kind
Speaker 1: of walk back about how this is starting to eat
Speaker 1: into our own capabilities and our own stockpiles. So everyone
Speaker 1: is looking forward to what's going to happen in the spring.
Speaker 1: What sort of an offensive is Ukraine going to be
Speaker 1: able to mount. What is Russia ultimately planning? You know,
Speaker 1: are they going to have another round of conscription? Are
Speaker 1: they going to be able to sort of get their
Speaker 1: act together and push forward and reclaim some of the
Speaker 1: territory that they had lost after they initially took it.
Speaker 1: Those are really open questions, and the fact that Ukraine
Speaker 1: has had a lot of the momentum for this entire
Speaker 1: war does not mean that that will necessarily continue indefinitely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and let's go to the next one here. This fits
Speaker 1: again with an affirmative decision to provide more advanced weaponry.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainians actually just arrived in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, yesterday
Speaker 1: to begin training on the Patriot miss system. Now, let's
Speaker 1: also be clear, it's going to take a long time
Speaker 1: for these troops to learn how to use the Patriots,
Speaker 1: and there's also a lot of questions as to whether
Speaker 1: they can even do it without the United States. One
Speaker 1: of the original reasons we didn't want to provide Patriot
Speaker 1: missile defense systems to the Ukrainians was because it was
Speaker 1: said by the US military specifically, we wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to do so without having US troops on the ground
Speaker 1: to operate them and in order to take care of them.
Speaker 1: These are very sensitive pieces of equipment. Whether that rule
Speaker 1: will remain the case or not, I think we'll all
Speaker 1: keep our eyes very open. Let's go to the next
Speaker 1: one here. Why does any of this matter? In terms
Speaker 1: of the tanks and more. Ukraine is preparing for the
Speaker 1: new offensive right now, as Russia and Belarus are beginning
Speaker 1: joint drills. There's been a lot of questions around Belarus
Speaker 1: about a potential draft, about potential massing of troops on
Speaker 1: that side, and some sort of dual like an official
Speaker 1: dual alliance against Ukraine, beyond just political support for the war.
Speaker 1: It's complicated too by the fact that a lot of
Speaker 1: Belarussians don't want anything to do with the war in Ukraine,
Speaker 1: and they specifically don't want to have to fight into it.
Speaker 1: Will putin force the government there in order to acquies
Speaker 1: and to join him in some sort of Soviet Union
Speaker 1: type thing. I have no idea how exactly that would do,
Speaker 1: especially maybe to try and take some of the pressure
Speaker 1: off of the front line where it is right now.
Speaker 1: I think what we do know is very clearly the
Speaker 1: Ukrainians are doing their absolute best. They're doing forest cleaning,
Speaker 1: they're doing a lot of drills, but the most significant
Speaker 1: thing that they remain is clamoring for as much firepower
Speaker 1: as they can on the world stage. Celenski at Davos
Speaker 1: this week, making the same case, more weapons, more weapons,
Speaker 1: more weapons. Here he visited the US number one message,
Speaker 1: I needed more, I need even more. You know, even
Speaker 1: the patriots is not enough. Quite frankly, what he said
Speaker 1: in his speech allegedly that's what he talked about only
Speaker 1: with Biden in his meeting. So clearly they're going for
Speaker 1: broke in two thousand and twenty three, whenever the fighting
Speaker 1: season does come and the mud seems to go away,
Speaker 1: and we're not that far away. We're only a couple
Speaker 1: of months from seeing some of that behavior actually happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a report this morning about how Ukraine and the
Speaker 1: Russia's war in Ukraine is sort of dominating the discussions
Speaker 1: at Davos World Economic Forum. Not only is a Lenski speaking,
Speaker 1: the first lady I believe is there, along with a
Speaker 1: top aid. So they're going full court press, as they
Speaker 1: always do in terms of what can you give us?
Speaker 1: We need more, we need more, we need more. Who
Speaker 1: can blame them? But that is the sort of state
Speaker 1: of affairs as we see what's going to come next
Speaker 1: in terms of this war that has been going on
Speaker 1: now almost a year, I mean with no one in sight, sadly,
Speaker 1: So that's where we are as of today. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Let's go to the next part here. This is some
Speaker 1: interesting news that was broken by Branco Marcetic. Let's go
Speaker 1: and put this up there on the screen. He actually
Speaker 1: found some diplomatic cables previously unreported that showed that Russia
Speaker 1: saw NATO expansion as a red line. Now, I want
Speaker 1: to be very careful in the ways that I talk
Speaker 1: about this. I am not saying in any way that
Speaker 1: it is NATO's fault that the Ukraine War happened. The
Speaker 1: Russians are the ones who invaded. They didn't have to
Speaker 1: do it if they didn't want to. So that being said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's take a step back though, as to what are
Speaker 1: the precipitating strategic conditions through which the war broke out.
Speaker 1: It's like when you talk about the First World War. Yes,
Speaker 1: it started with the Archduke Ferdinand. It also started a
Speaker 1: decade before whenever there was a German shipbuilding programs, And
Speaker 1: you'd be an idiot if you didn't consider the latter.
Speaker 1: Why does any of this matter? So what they say,
Speaker 1: what Branco has found are multiple cables, let's say, from
Speaker 1: NATO allies France, Germany, Italy, and Norway, all in Washington
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen sixties and onward that showed that
Speaker 1: the Russians believe that NATO expansion of any sort was
Speaker 1: seen as a redline by the Russian government, specifically also
Speaker 1: in the post Cold War environment at which NATO obviously
Speaker 1: not only expanded beyond Germany, but you know, included former
Speaker 1: Soviet republics and others in the Baltics. All of this
Speaker 1: has long been a point of consternation. It's pointed as
Speaker 1: one of the major breaks in the US Russian relationship.
Speaker 1: You know, people forget we actually quite a good relationship
Speaker 1: with Putin. In two thousand and one, he was one
Speaker 1: of the first people to call President Bush after nine
Speaker 1: to eleven he visited here. Bush famously said that he
Speaker 1: saw his soul in his eyes. Throwback to our great
Speaker 1: President George W. Bush. He really did well for us
Speaker 1: all anyway, that's great, Yes, it's worked out great. And
Speaker 1: actually the Bush administration is a critical turning point whenever
Speaker 1: we think about the history, because that included not only
Speaker 1: the expansion of NATO to the Baltic States, but that
Speaker 1: was also a lot of people forget the Russian incursion
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, into Georgia. Well that
Speaker 1: was actually after the declaration that they wanted to include
Speaker 1: Ukraine in Georgia in NATO. It was one of the
Speaker 1: first times we had a declarative statement that they were
Speaker 1: invited essentially into the NATO Alliance. And effectively, you know,
Speaker 1: relations between our two countries have dropped off a cliff then.
Speaker 1: But I thought that these cables were worth looking into
Speaker 1: and more because when you write the history of this
Speaker 1: war in one hundred years like this unquestionably is going
Speaker 1: to be a key part of the discussion. As I said,
Speaker 1: you know, for a decade or twenty years or so
Speaker 1: after the First World War, nobody wanted to look back
Speaker 1: at you know, the British Navy and the German navy,
Speaker 1: and how you know, Austro Hungarians and all the macro
Speaker 1: streat It took a long time before we were all
Speaker 1: able to dispassionately sit back and be like, Okay, these
Speaker 1: are the precipitating environment which created the conditions that war
Speaker 1: could break out. And I think, right, you know, we're
Speaker 1: trying to do the same thing here, just in real time,
Speaker 1: which is why it's very difficult. Yes, well, and let
Speaker 1: me also say a few things. Number one, I mean,
Speaker 1: what comes out really clearly from these cables, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, it's worth noting we're pulled from WikiLeaks. We
Speaker 1: wouldn't know any of this without WikiLeaks and Julian Assange
Speaker 1: side note. But what comes out really clearly is guess
Speaker 1: what We were warned by a lot of people, including
Speaker 1: our own officials, that this was that NATO expansion, especially
Speaker 1: with regards to Ukraine, was a red line for Russia,
Speaker 1: and we chose to cross it anyway. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: with the Kremlin and Putin, they bear responsibility for this war.
Speaker 1: But as we look at what's unfolding with China and
Speaker 1: what they are laying out as their red lines in
Speaker 1: terms of escalation, it is worth bearing in mind that
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people that predicted exactly this
Speaker 1: sequence of events and that this would be the path
Speaker 1: we walk on to end up at another European land war.
Speaker 1: And guess what they were right. And here's the other
Speaker 1: piece that I think is really important. Note the way
Speaker 1: that we have been gas lit to extraordinary measures by
Speaker 1: the press and by the political class to pretend that
Speaker 1: none of this discussion ever happened, when we have it
Speaker 1: here clear as day. The number of officials and world
Speaker 1: leaders who were saying, we got to be really careful here,
Speaker 1: and this could end ultimately really badly. Let me read
Speaker 1: you one particular piece here, Bronco writes, in a particularly
Speaker 1: prophetic set of warnings, US officials were told that pushing
Speaker 1: for Ukrainian membership in NATO would not only increase the
Speaker 1: chance of Russia meddling in the country, which happened, but
Speaker 1: destabilizing the divided nation, which also happened, and that US
Speaker 1: and other NATO officials pressured Ukrainian leaders to reshape this
Speaker 1: unfriendly public opinion in response. All of this was told
Speaker 1: to US officials in both public and private, by not
Speaker 1: just Seed to Russian officials going all the way up
Speaker 1: to the presidency, but by NATO allies, various analysts, and experts,
Speaker 1: liberal Russian voices critical of Putin, and even sometimes US
Speaker 1: diplomats themselves. This is also really interesting, and we'll just
Speaker 1: say interesting. Many of these cables that Bronco was able
Speaker 1: to find were transmitted by then US Ambassador to Russia
Speaker 1: William Burns, who is today serving as Biden's CIA Director.
Speaker 1: Recounting his conversations with various Russian observers from both regional
Speaker 1: and US think tanks, Burns concluded in a March two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven cable that NATO enlargement and US missile
Speaker 1: defense deployments in Europe played to the classic Russian fear
Speaker 1: of encirclement. Ukraine and Georgia's entry represents an unthinkable predictment
Speaker 1: for Russia. He reported six months later, warning that Moscow
Speaker 1: would cause enough trouble in Georgia and counted on continued
Speaker 1: political disarray in Ukraine to halt it. In an especially
Speaker 1: Prussian set of cables, he summed up scholars views that
Speaker 1: the emerging Russia China relationship was largely quite quote the
Speaker 1: byproduct of bad US policies and was unsustainable quote and less.
Speaker 1: Continued NATO enlargement pushed Russia and China even closer together.
Speaker 1: So again they knew they were worn by Russians, they
Speaker 1: were worn by NATO allies, they were worn by their
Speaker 1: own ambassador of Russia, that these were red lines, and
Speaker 1: that there could be real consequences and this could create
Speaker 1: destabilization in Ukraine. It could lead to Russia feeling encircled
Speaker 1: and lashing out. Again, this is I'm not denying them culpability,
Speaker 1: but don't be gas lit into believing that none of
Speaker 1: this discussion was happening and that people didn't know that
Speaker 1: our actions were incredibly provocative. Yeah, and then immediately after
Speaker 1: the war we emit Sweden and Feeland and the NATO.
Speaker 1: So anyway, perhaps one day we will find out why
Speaker 1: is that decision was and perhaps we would have liked
Speaker 1: a little bit more discussion about it at the time
Speaker 1: before you end up in a general European war. Let's
Speaker 1: go to the next one, Chat GPT. This is a
Speaker 1: very important story. I know that many of you are
Speaker 1: very interested in it and the implications of chat GPT
Speaker 1: on our society. I have yet to see a major
Speaker 1: macro case or an institution that is bringing down except
Speaker 1: for higher education, and that's where we want to focus
Speaker 1: our energy. Today, let's put this up there on the
Speaker 1: screen from inside Higher edg And it's specifically about the
Speaker 1: major changes that chat GPT is having, both on the
Speaker 1: way that people are creating syllabi, but also in terms
Speaker 1: of how students themselves are using chat GPT and how
Speaker 1: it's revolutionizing homework assignments the way that they have essays written.
Speaker 1: There have been now multiple cheating scandals in which professors
Speaker 1: have suspected and have confirmed later that essays were written
Speaker 1: almost entirely by chat GPT. They've also, though, been used
Speaker 1: by students in order to try and generate outlines, and
Speaker 1: it raises a real question of like, what exactly is
Speaker 1: the what exactly is the okay way to do this?
Speaker 1: I don't know in my head, I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but creating an outline is just very different than writing
Speaker 1: the essay and then editing it. But is it, you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, if you're outsourcing some
Speaker 1: of this work, but how is that different than previously
Speaker 1: whenever you would go read, you know, an example essay
Speaker 1: or whatever and then try and use that too for
Speaker 1: your college work. And I think it just brings a
Speaker 1: lot of really interesting questions, like what are the new standards,
Speaker 1: like what is cheating? It's not cheating. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: this is an incredibly helpful tool. People are using the
Speaker 1: first draft of their syllabi, they're getting bibliotical references, they're
Speaker 1: getting all this you know, busy work and stuff, which
Speaker 1: was just nonsense while you were in college. And on
Speaker 1: the other some people just don't want to do any
Speaker 1: work at all, Like how do we come to any
Speaker 1: sort of academic consensus as to what this means. This
Speaker 1: is the first field where I've seen major consternation on
Speaker 1: both sides and real grappling of like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: what does this actual open AI system mean? It is
Speaker 1: actually a really fascinating thing to think about. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is far from the first time that technology has
Speaker 1: made certain skills obsolete. You know, you think about taxi
Speaker 1: drivers as one example, where you know it used to
Speaker 1: be really critical you have the entire map in your
Speaker 1: head and you're able to get around on your own.
Speaker 1: Like now anyone can pull it up on Google Maps
Speaker 1: or whatever your map app of choice is, Ways or whatever,
Speaker 1: and no problem. You don't need to know any of that. Obviously,
Speaker 1: there's been tons of advances in automation that have made
Speaker 1: certain job categories holy obsolete. This is not a new story.
Speaker 1: Part of why I think there's a particular freak out
Speaker 1: over chat GPT, which for those of you who haven't
Speaker 1: played with it or haven't seen the discussion around this,
Speaker 1: basically you can give it a prompt and it will
Speaker 1: write a whole thing for you. So you can be like,
Speaker 1: write a saga and jetty monologue about chat GPT and
Speaker 1: it can do it and do like a fairly decent job,
Speaker 1: and do it really quickly. So that's what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. Is still in the early phases, and it's
Speaker 1: not perfect, and you can read it and find some
Speaker 1: things that are like a little off. It has weaknesses
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, if it's on a topic
Speaker 1: that is personal to you, or it's sort of esoteric
Speaker 1: and there isn't a lot of data research out there,
Speaker 1: it's going to struggle there. But you know, this is
Speaker 1: already a fairly powerful tool. And so to get back
Speaker 1: to my point, I think the reason why there's a
Speaker 1: particular freak out about this is because a lot of
Speaker 1: the automation previously had made obsolete either blue collar or
Speaker 1: service sector jobs. This one is kind of coming for
Speaker 1: the knowledge workers, and that's what is I think particularly
Speaker 1: making people uncomfortable. Now. Look, in my opinion, a lot
Speaker 1: of our technological advances come with huge upside, but they
Speaker 1: also come with some downsides as well. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we talk about teenagers and social media and is that
Speaker 1: fueling a crisis of loneliness where you're not really doing
Speaker 1: things in real life anymore, it's all just on social media,
Speaker 1: and that is that part of why you're having depression,
Speaker 1: why you're having more self harm, why you're having more
Speaker 1: suicide attempts. These are still open questions which are being
Speaker 1: research and debated. But you know, most new major technological
Speaker 1: advances come with big benefits and also some costs and
Speaker 1: some drawbacks. That's my guess of what this is all
Speaker 1: ultimately going to mean. I think the first that first
Speaker 1: piece that we had up there was actually very thoughtful
Speaker 1: in sorting through some of these complicated issues and basically
Speaker 1: pointing out this is going to change sort of skill
Speaker 1: sets that are valuable. So instead of you know, just
Speaker 1: being good at like churning out papers based on previous research,
Speaker 1: it's going to be more about knowing what questions to
Speaker 1: ask going beyond crowdsourced knowledge. So again, if it's not
Speaker 1: out there widespread already, chat GPT is going to struggle
Speaker 1: with it. So that's where a human being can have
Speaker 1: particular inside. They say, leverage AI generated insights into decisions
Speaker 1: and actions. So the AI can generate the paper. But
Speaker 1: then what you do with that in the real world, well,
Speaker 1: that's up to the human beings. They point out. Robots
Speaker 1: and automation did displace millions of members the industrial working class.
Speaker 1: Computerization eliminated large swaths of middle management jobs. The threat
Speaker 1: now is to the very knowledge workers who many assumed
Speaker 1: were invulnerable to technological change. And again, I think that
Speaker 1: is why this is particularly striking a nerve with people
Speaker 1: who have a lot of power and cultural cachet right now, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And actually, let's go and put this in New York
Speaker 1: Times piece up on the screen, because this example just
Speaker 1: shows you how how much the technology is changing. So
Speaker 1: a professor said that he read an essay which was
Speaker 1: easily the best paper. He said, a red flag went
Speaker 1: up instantly. He confronted his student, and the student confess
Speaker 1: to using chat GPT. He said that the best paper
Speaker 1: explored the morality of burka bands with clean paragraphs, fitting examples,
Speaker 1: and rigorous arguments. Alarmed by the discovery, the professor now
Speaker 1: has to transform essay writing. He now is going to
Speaker 1: have students have to write their first draft in the
Speaker 1: classroom using browsers that monitor and restrict your computer activity. Now,
Speaker 1: what's also happening is some professors are redesigning their courses,
Speaker 1: including oral exams, group work, and handwritten assignments instead of
Speaker 1: typed ones to make sure that you can't just copy
Speaker 1: and paste from chat GPT. It's like a reversion. These
Speaker 1: are just a couple of examples of how they are
Speaker 1: changing things, and some school networks are actually banning chat
Speaker 1: GBT on their Wi Fi. Many schools and others have
Speaker 1: no idea how to deal with this because it's such
Speaker 1: a new innovation. And it's like I was saying around
Speaker 1: the rules, why is an outline better than an essay?
Speaker 1: I mean, in some ways it's like if it's not
Speaker 1: your original work, then it is plagiarism, but you're not
Speaker 1: plagiarizing one person. You're plagiarizing like the brainchild of the
Speaker 1: entire Internet. A lot of this is ethics discussions as well,
Speaker 1: and I thought that the piece that we've put up
Speaker 1: there first, the inside higher ed one. I thought it
Speaker 1: was good. It was like, here's how we teach you know, creasoning,
Speaker 1: critical thinking skills, and all the other reasons why college
Speaker 1: ostensibly even should exist in the age of crowdsource information.
Speaker 1: But I can also see like college bureaucrats and all
Speaker 1: those just becoming very just. I really hate these things
Speaker 1: that I see college kids have to do. Right. I know,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of college kids who watch our show.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's insanity. You know, you have
Speaker 1: to keep the camera on you at all times, like
Speaker 1: you can't even go to the bathroom during this break,
Speaker 1: and then everybody, you know, here's the thing. All these kids,
Speaker 1: they're smarter, they know how to work around the rules.
Speaker 1: They only make cheat you know, in terms of the
Speaker 1: cheating and all that. It's just like kids will find
Speaker 1: a way. So you've got to design the course work
Speaker 1: in a way where it's not just rote memorization or
Speaker 1: anything like that. You got to design it in a
Speaker 1: way where it's more valuable for what they're actually taking away.
Speaker 1: But I don't think college has been like that for
Speaker 1: a long time. I think you have to ask some
Speaker 1: fundamental questions about what it is you want the student
Speaker 1: to get out of this experience. And I think the
Speaker 1: response that professors are having is understandable of saying, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: we don't want them just cheating and outsourcing THO to
Speaker 1: chat GPT, so we're going to force them to do
Speaker 1: in class. We're going to block it from the Wi FI.
Speaker 1: But I ultimately fundamentally think it's the wrong approach, And
Speaker 1: you can think about it with regards to like calculators,
Speaker 1: like calculators to not be a thing, and so it
Speaker 1: was really important that you know how to work out
Speaker 1: these long, complex calculations by hand. Now it still matters
Speaker 1: for young kids to be able to learn the basics
Speaker 1: of math and numerology and how this all fits together
Speaker 1: and have some conceptualizing of what these numbers are and
Speaker 1: what they do. But being able to work down all
Speaker 1: these long calculations by hand using a calculator isn't cheating
Speaker 1: if you're ultimately able to get the right answer and
Speaker 1: enables human performance. So I think it's a similar dynamic
Speaker 1: here where to try to fight against the technology and
Speaker 1: block it out is not ultimately going to be the
Speaker 1: right approach, Nor do I think it's ultimately the most
Speaker 1: sustainable approach. I think you have to ask yourself, what
Speaker 1: are the skills that you are trying to get your
Speaker 1: students to gain, what is going to be relevant in
Speaker 1: the modern world that they're ultimately entering, and then gear
Speaker 1: your coursework towards that. So, like I said, I think
Speaker 1: it's understandable that this is the short term reaction. Long term,
Speaker 1: they won't be able to sustain it. Bottom line, it's
Speaker 1: not going to make sense and will evolve and figure
Speaker 1: out what are those skill sets that are going to
Speaker 1: continue to be really valuable and where human beings have
Speaker 1: like uniquely something to add totally, I totally agree with you.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, we have a little more airline chaos
Speaker 1: that we wanted to bring you this audio just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just really fascinating to listen to because you had
Speaker 1: a near miss at JFK Airport where air traffic control
Speaker 1: had to intervene, and we got ahold of the audio
Speaker 1: and actually someone put together a little animation so you
Speaker 1: could see where the aircraft, where the planes were as
Speaker 1: they're getting ready to taxi and take off, so very
Speaker 1: close to a collision here and they had to intervene.
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen on how this all went down.
Speaker 1: American hold decision, Mark WV hold decision, the nineteen forty
Speaker 1: three cancel take off Finch, So the nineteen forty three
Speaker 1: cancel take off Finch rejecting, So it's the nineteen forty
Speaker 1: three Shane tensions. Yeah, we're gonna have to go somewhere,
Speaker 1: run a couple of cleves, and probably make some vocal
Speaker 1: so you can hear some cursing there F bomb s bomb,
Speaker 1: and then they're real close to a collision there right
Speaker 1: on the runway. And listen. I'm not an aviation expert, however,
Speaker 1: I've learned a lot this year, but people who you know,
Speaker 1: where pilots are really familiar with the industry. We're looking
Speaker 1: at this and saying this is probably pilot error in
Speaker 1: terms of where this plane was going and where it
Speaker 1: was supposed to go. But it does raise a lot
Speaker 1: of questions how often is this happening and how easy
Speaker 1: is it for those errors to occur? What can we
Speaker 1: do to sort of mitigate these potential collisions. At the
Speaker 1: same time, we have some new reporting from our friends
Speaker 1: over the American Prospect about who exactly is to blame
Speaker 1: for that ground stoppage caused by a failed computer system.
Speaker 1: Let's go and put this up on the screen. They
Speaker 1: do such a good job. The question raised here what
Speaker 1: was behind last week's FAA breakdown Pete Bodhage's personal choices
Speaker 1: or certainly a factor. Basically, they go into who is
Speaker 1: running the FAA and again as a reminder, this whole
Speaker 1: situation unfolded where they had to have the groundstop because
Speaker 1: you had a key computer system that was down. So
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people in the mainstream press.
Speaker 1: It wasn't really Pete's fall. What does he have to
Speaker 1: do with it? But lo and behold his management of
Speaker 1: the FAA in terms of who which personnel he put
Speaker 1: in place, could have been a key factor here. The
Speaker 1: FAA was left for a while with a vacancy at
Speaker 1: the top for the better part of a year. By statute,
Speaker 1: the deputy administrator is supposed to carry out the duties
Speaker 1: of the administration when the office is empty, but that's
Speaker 1: not how the Department of Transportation under Pete actually handled
Speaker 1: that vacancy. Instead, they passed over the deputy administrator, Bradley Mims,
Speaker 1: and instead appointed a dude named Billy Nolan, who was
Speaker 1: the Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety. So if you're falling along,
Speaker 1: they had this vacancy. Rather than following protocol of who
Speaker 1: the position was supposed to be filled by, they jumped
Speaker 1: to this other dukee. Well why did they do that?
Speaker 1: According to the piece quote, there's no real explanation for
Speaker 1: why Nolan was picked over Mimes. Both have decades of experience.
Speaker 1: The most noticeable difference between them is that Nolan is
Speaker 1: a former airline executive who also worked at Airlines for America,
Speaker 1: a powerful trade group. The other one, who should have
Speaker 1: been in line for the gig, worked in the public
Speaker 1: sector in advisory roles and largely worked in transportation consulting.
Speaker 1: So he went to the guy who used to lobby
Speaker 1: for the airlines to run the FAA. And Is Stoler
Speaker 1: pointed out, there's long been a really cozy relationship between
Speaker 1: the FAA and the airline industry. They have not served
Speaker 1: effectively as regulators and that's part of why potentially there
Speaker 1: wasn't money in order to rebuild this key system and
Speaker 1: make sure that we don't didn't have the groundstop that
Speaker 1: we watch unfold. Yeah, I mean, what I take away
Speaker 1: from the Prospect piece is Buddhajed just doesn't care that
Speaker 1: much about his job. He just hires cronies, and when
Speaker 1: you hire cronies, bad things happen. They specifically point to
Speaker 1: the fact that FAA has been very reluctant and Buddhajet
Speaker 1: specifically to take on many of the airlines. And I
Speaker 1: think we started with the clip to show you like,
Speaker 1: this is not a joke. You know, people can die
Speaker 1: one bad one wrong thing, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are totally innocent can lose their lives hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars of damage. And clearly this is one
Speaker 1: of the most critical systems that we use in the
Speaker 1: United States. It's highly regulated for a reason. Now, look,
Speaker 1: it is safe. There are of course always going to
Speaker 1: be missus and human error and all of that. But
Speaker 1: what they highlight here specifically is that Buddha Judge's lack
Speaker 1: or basically reluctance to put a strong person into the
Speaker 1: FAA was a personal choice that he made that has
Speaker 1: led to much of the airline chaos that we see
Speaker 1: in our system. You know, I just had somebody contact
Speaker 1: me yesterday about how Southwest Airlines was only going to
Speaker 1: reimburse them, like two hundred dollars of the seven hundred
Speaker 1: dollars that they had spent. Here here's what they said.
Speaker 1: Southwest canceled three consecutive flights. I had to drive from
Speaker 1: Chicago to Dallas in a rental after Christmas. Rental cost
Speaker 1: was over seven hundred dollars. They are only refunding me
Speaker 1: two hundred and one dollars despite providing receipts. I'm absolutely furious.
Speaker 1: They destroyed his vacation. Now they're only reimbursing him, you know,
Speaker 1: two sevens or whatever of the cost or five hundred
Speaker 1: out of pocket. How many people are going to keep
Speaker 1: fighting with the airline? You know, after something like that,
Speaker 1: most people are going to get pissed and then they're
Speaker 1: going to eat it. And that's not right. Most people
Speaker 1: in this country, by the way, don't even have five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars in saving. So how many people out there
Speaker 1: did this happen to? And the person who is supposed
Speaker 1: to have their back is pee Bootajidge and he has
Speaker 1: done next to nothing. They have a great line in here,
Speaker 1: they say, listen, this system was suffering from neglect, which
Speaker 1: resulted last week in that mass grounding Budhajije is not
Speaker 1: directly culpable for that specific failure, but he is responsible
Speaker 1: for the personnel decisions about who was overseeing the situation.
Speaker 1: He's also responsible for setting the tone of the interactions
Speaker 1: between the Department Transportation and an aviation industry that seemingly
Speaker 1: distributes dividends in a more timely manner than it transports Americans.
Speaker 1: He doesn't care about the job. He's bad at the job.
Speaker 1: He has done nothing to hold these airlines to account
Speaker 1: when they have failed over and over and over again
Speaker 1: and screwed over their passengers over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Has to be the worst cabinet secretary or among the
Speaker 1: worst cabinet secretaries in the entire Biden ministries. And that's
Speaker 1: what happens when you use just like nepotism and cronyism
Speaker 1: to make these key personnel choices. Yeah exactly, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just think it's totally ridiculous. And we're not saying
Speaker 1: he's solely responsible. But when you oversee an agency, and
Speaker 1: you oversee and have one of the you have the
Speaker 1: biggest ground stop since nine to eleven in modern American history.
Speaker 1: Two weeks after the biggest airline meltdown in modern memory,
Speaker 1: and a year after the worst cancellation year in modern
Speaker 1: history on record, something's eventually got to be your fault
Speaker 1: for not doing anything about it. And do you see
Speaker 1: the aggression and the necessity and the urgency that we
Speaker 1: should need from the man who is solely responsible for
Speaker 1: running it. I know the answer to that. Indeed, all right, Sager,
Speaker 1: what are you looking at? Well, there is perhaps no
Speaker 1: area where Biden has been more feckless than on the
Speaker 1: issue of TikTok that we've now known for literally years
Speaker 1: that TikTok is Chinese spyware. It's popular before he took office,
Speaker 1: for sure, but in the last two years under him,
Speaker 1: it has absolutely exploded. Trump incompetently attempted to ban that app,
Speaker 1: did not succeed because he didn't take the government seriously,
Speaker 1: and Biden's core selling point was returned to normalcy and competence. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that has been revealed as a farce, especially in the
Speaker 1: light of his exact same classified document scandal from the
Speaker 1: previous president. But with TikTok, it might be worse than incompetence.
Speaker 1: It's both a reluctance to do something that is in
Speaker 1: the clear interest of America's youth in fear of a
Speaker 1: temporary backlash and an ongoing weak posture to the CCP.
Speaker 1: The latest gambit by TikTok is classic in their behavior
Speaker 1: under the Biden administration. TikTok does not even pretend anymore
Speaker 1: that they do not answer to Beijing. Their entire selling
Speaker 1: point to the Biden administration into the West about why
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be banned is that while yes, they're owned
Speaker 1: by Beijing, overall, they have all these fake corporate processes
Speaker 1: in place to make sure Americans data is totally separate.
Speaker 1: That's why they have a Singapore based CEO. They run
Speaker 1: their data through Oracle, and the key part of the
Speaker 1: deal that they appear on the verge of striking with
Speaker 1: the government allows them to continue operating under Chinese control
Speaker 1: in exchange is of outlined here many times in the past.
Speaker 1: Beijing just to keep running the show, we're getting even
Speaker 1: more contours of what that deal's looking look like. Negotiated
Speaker 1: in a latest proposal by TikTok, the crux of the
Speaker 1: plan is effectively to let the US based software company
Speaker 1: Oracle look at their algorithms on how they choose to
Speaker 1: serve up videos and how they identify which videos to
Speaker 1: delete Under the system, quote, third party monitors would also
Speaker 1: be involved. The third party monitors would then quote check
Speaker 1: the code for video recommendation algorithms to detect whether it's
Speaker 1: been manipulated by the Chinese government or other foreign actors
Speaker 1: who have access. They propose then that if you find
Speaker 1: such access, you can then flag it. But who do
Speaker 1: you flag it to. There are a host of other
Speaker 1: provisions within the deal that are just fake, lots of
Speaker 1: corporate speak about how the company will be totally separate,
Speaker 1: and they have all these processes except for one problem
Speaker 1: buried within the proposal was this, any proposal which TikTok
Speaker 1: would spin off and put all of its transparency in
Speaker 1: would literally have to be approved by the Chinese. In
Speaker 1: other words, they would have to have approval of any
Speaker 1: deal which is supposed to show how they're not controlled
Speaker 1: by China to be approved by China. It's farce. Luckily,
Speaker 1: people are actually beginning to catch on, and even Democrats
Speaker 1: in Washington cannot deny it anymore. Just a few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: President Biden signed into law a ban on TikTok for
Speaker 1: all US government issued cell phones and devices unanisically passed
Speaker 1: in the United States Senate. It actually specifically came after
Speaker 1: numerous reports that I have detailed here at nauseum how
Speaker 1: TikTok employees have pulled data on caesars who report bad
Speaker 1: things about them, and also how the app was specifically
Speaker 1: caught spying on American citizens and gathering intense data on
Speaker 1: them that had no commercial purpose but did have national
Speaker 1: security implications. The company itself has already admitted it has
Speaker 1: zero control over its domestic algorithm. One internal example, during
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election, a tweak in the algorithm by
Speaker 1: Beijing reduced the amount of political content getting recommended by
Speaker 1: a full thirty to forty percent in the United States.
Speaker 1: Why was that done? Who was suppressed? How can we
Speaker 1: have any confidence it wasn't done at the behalse of
Speaker 1: the Chinese government? Obviously we cannot. The federal government banned too,
Speaker 1: is only the tip of the iceberg. Nearly half the
Speaker 1: states in the entire country have banned TikTok right now,
Speaker 1: including those run by Democrats like Wisconsin. In nearly every case,
Speaker 1: the state government cite the FBI warning of security risks
Speaker 1: to their devices as well as to their public networks,
Speaker 1: including now at major public universities across the United States.
Speaker 1: The momentum is actually moving every single day in this direction.
Speaker 1: And consider that a year ago, not one state had
Speaker 1: even banned TikTok. We are now in half. Biden has
Speaker 1: a choice. He can be the person who will be
Speaker 1: drug across the finish line well after it has established
Speaker 1: massive market share like now embedded itself into the socio
Speaker 1: cultural life of America's youth. Or you can just nip
Speaker 1: it in the bud and we can all move on.
Speaker 1: Elon's been talking about bringing back vine. We'll see, maybe
Speaker 1: that's a solution. In India, where TikTok has been banned
Speaker 1: for some time now, now clones immediately sprang up and
Speaker 1: nobody there seems to care at all. The innovation of
Speaker 1: TikTok is easily replicable. There is zero, I repeat zero
Speaker 1: reason why we should allow it to be controlled by
Speaker 1: one of our major adversaries. And I will end to
Speaker 1: address the most common rebuttal but soager, all social media
Speaker 1: companies are black holes. What makes this different? First of all,
Speaker 1: you're not wrong, and I would change that certainly if
Speaker 1: I could. But the US based social comedia companies as
Speaker 1: bad as they are, at least they are subject to
Speaker 1: our laws. We can subpoena them, Our oligarchs can buy
Speaker 1: them and reveal their secrets. They can tell the government
Speaker 1: to screw off if they want to, and have many
Speaker 1: times in China. None of that exists. Their companies, their oligarchs,
Speaker 1: everything are property of the state, subject entirely to their control.
Speaker 1: They can ban social media apps specifically because they actually
Speaker 1: ban ours specifically because they believe we would use them
Speaker 1: to swing their public opinion. Should we be so naive
Speaker 1: then to think that they aren't doing the exact same
Speaker 1: to us, all these deals that don't either force a
Speaker 1: sale or ban TikTok outright complete and total bs and
Speaker 1: do not let them or the Biden administration try and
Speaker 1: tell you otherwise. I feel like I have to do
Speaker 1: this once a month, because once a month they try
Speaker 1: their chicanery. And if you want to hear my reaction
Speaker 1: to Sager's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com, Crystal, what do you take a look at? Well, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm tracking a revealing new move from a potential Trump
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four rival, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkit. Here are
Speaker 1: the details. Virginia was apparently in the running to be
Speaker 1: the new location for a Ford electric battery plant. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, governors go to great lengths in order to
Speaker 1: attract these types of jobs into their own states. But
Speaker 1: here Governor Youngkin has gone in the total opposite direction,
Speaker 1: in what, at first blush might seem a surprising move.
Speaker 1: Here's the Washington Post quote. Governor Glenn Youngkin said this
Speaker 1: week that he had rejected efforts by Ford Motor Company
Speaker 1: to consider locating an electric battery plant in Virginia over
Speaker 1: concerns that the automaker's partnership with China created a security risk. Quote.
Speaker 1: We felt that the right thing to do was to
Speaker 1: not recruit Ford as a front for China to America,
Speaker 1: Youngkin said Wednesday night to reporters after delivering his State
Speaker 1: of the Commonwealth speech to the General Assembly. So basically,
Speaker 1: here's the backstory. Ford has been ramping up ev production
Speaker 1: to meet new demand and has a new financial incentive
Speaker 1: to do so with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker 1: One of their partners in bottery production is China based
Speaker 1: Contemporary Amperrex Technology or CATL now in order to obtain
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act credits, though Ford is working on
Speaker 1: a structure though, put their name on the plant and
Speaker 1: retain one hundred percent ownership of the building and equipment,
Speaker 1: but CATL would run the plant and they would own
Speaker 1: the tech. Now listen, as I just discussed with Sager,
Speaker 1: I am actually sympathetic to some of the national security
Speaker 1: concerns around China and key tech, especially with regards to TikTok,
Speaker 1: But this one seems like a bit of a stretch.
Speaker 1: With TikTok, there are clear issues around the Chinese government
Speaker 1: spying on American citizens. In this instance, with Ford, it's
Speaker 1: a bit harder to see what the real national security
Speaker 1: risk actually is. First of all, this plan's going to
Speaker 1: be built either way, whether it's in Michigan or in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Second of all, this company, c ATL, clearly already knows
Speaker 1: how to make electric batteries, so it's not like they'd
Speaker 1: be really gaining any sort of groundbreaking technical expertise that
Speaker 1: China doesn't already possess, and frankly isn't ahead of the
Speaker 1: game on us visa our own competence. When pressed on
Speaker 1: these questions, Youngkin's chief legal counsel offered a world word
Speaker 1: sale and answer that the battery plan involved quote national
Speaker 1: security risk type technology, and he stopped that. Real persuasive there, buddy.
Speaker 1: The truth is the decision to block this factory, which
Speaker 1: could have provided up to twenty five hundred good jobs
Speaker 1: in Southside Virginia distress part of the state where people
Speaker 1: are desperate for solid, middle income income income jobs, makes
Speaker 1: little sense from a national security perspective, and it makes
Speaker 1: absolutely no sense at all if you're concerned with your
Speaker 1: political future in state of Virginia. These types of high
Speaker 1: profile job creating deals are what gubernatorial approval ratings are
Speaker 1: made of. But it makes a lot of sense if
Speaker 1: Young Kin is angling to run for president in a
Speaker 1: party that is extremely hawkish towards China right now, especially
Speaker 1: since Youngkin himself ari has a lot of vulnerabilities when
Speaker 1: it comes to his own business dealings with the nation
Speaker 1: of China. When you couple that with the fact that
Speaker 1: the factory would be associated with a Biden passed deal,
Speaker 1: the Inflation Reduction Act, you can see why politically, Youngkin
Speaker 1: decided to throw the possibility of twenty five hundred good
Speaker 1: jobs out the window in order to posture politically. Now,
Speaker 1: there's another factor here that's relevant as well, which is
Speaker 1: that Young can seize China as a key political vulnerability
Speaker 1: given his own business record. Remember, Young Cain became an
Speaker 1: extremely wealthy man from his time running private equity firm
Speaker 1: the Carlisle Group, and like all good private equity goals,
Speaker 1: he became fabulously wealthy by shipping a lot of American
Speaker 1: jobs overseas. One particularly noteworthy deal from twenty sixteen included
Speaker 1: buying a controlling stake in the Chinese outsourcing business VXI
Speaker 1: Global Solutions Business LLC and proceeding to ship that of
Speaker 1: American jobs to foreign shores. This record obviously opens him
Speaker 1: up to a devastating attack of the sort that the
Speaker 1: Obama team used to destroy Mitt Romney, but didn't come
Speaker 1: on much in his run for governor of Virginia. Why well,
Speaker 1: because his Democratic opponent Clinton Sickaphan Terry McAuliffe was an
Speaker 1: investor with Carlile Group himself. But Trump, he's already hinted
Speaker 1: that he will have no problem attacking Youngkin over his
Speaker 1: China times tys in what seemed like a bizarre, out
Speaker 1: of nowhere attack. Trump wrote recently on true social that
Speaker 1: Young Kin's name quote sounds Chinese. An attack that makes
Speaker 1: a lot more sense once you know these key pieces
Speaker 1: about Youngkin's record at Carlisle. Here is that truth from Trump,
Speaker 1: he said, quote young Kin, Now that's an interesting take.
Speaker 1: Sounds Chinese, doesn't it. In Virginia, couldn't have won without me.
Speaker 1: I endorsed him, get a very big Trump rally for him, telephonically,
Speaker 1: got Maggat to vote for him, or he couldn't have
Speaker 1: come close to winning. But he knows that and admits it,
Speaker 1: besides having a hard time with the Dems in Virginia.
Speaker 1: But he'll get it done. Classic Trump. So basically, Youngkin's
Speaker 1: move to block this plant really has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with his concern for national security and everything to do
Speaker 1: with his concern for his own political career. In fact,
Speaker 1: in a telling moment, Young Cain even tried to spend
Speaker 1: his time at Carlisle working with China to outsource American
Speaker 1: jobs as a positive. He told reporters, quote, I think
Speaker 1: I'm uniquely positioned to understand how the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 1: works because I dealt with it, and I understand what
Speaker 1: they're doing. I doubt, though, that Trump is going to
Speaker 1: let him wriggle out of his record as easily as
Speaker 1: mccauliffe and the Democrats ultimately did. Now, one last thing
Speaker 1: to note here is how the decision to block a
Speaker 1: high profile job creating factory reflects the triumph of vibes
Speaker 1: and aesthetics in politics over any sort of substance in reality.
Speaker 1: In a sane political world, the judgment of voters in
Speaker 1: the state you're running would be a thing that matters
Speaker 1: for national political ambitions. And there is just no doubt
Speaker 1: that as far as local Virginia voters in rural Virginia
Speaker 1: are concerned, Youngkin's decision is a terrible move. In fact,
Speaker 1: right now, over in Kentucky, Governor Andy Basher, who happens
Speaker 1: to be a Democrat and very red state, has earned
Speaker 1: one of the highest gubernatorial approval ratings in the entire
Speaker 1: country off of attracting Ford Battery plants to the Bluegrass state.
Speaker 1: Basher is literally right now the most popular Democratic governor
Speaker 1: in the whole country. Again, in spite of the fact
Speaker 1: that Kentucky has shifted hard read in recent years. That
Speaker 1: is how powerful this type of job creation can be.
Speaker 1: He actually, Bashir has the approval of nearly half of
Speaker 1: all self identified Republicans in the state of Kentucky. But
Speaker 1: Andy Basheer is trying to get re elected governor, while
Speaker 1: Glenn Youngkin wants to get elected president, and so instead
Speaker 1: of delivering for home state voters, Youngkin is delivering for
Speaker 1: the shallow commentary of Fox News pundits who won't get
Speaker 1: past a simplistic China bad talking point. Is it going
Speaker 1: to work well? His reincarnation as a chinahawk, after selling
Speaker 1: the American people out for fun and profit for years,
Speaker 1: will not sell a Republican presidential primary. Remember that young
Speaker 1: Kin basically had the field cleared for him in the
Speaker 1: Virginia GOP primary, and he was able to walk a
Speaker 1: careful line on what exactly he thought about Trump and
Speaker 1: any number of other issues. I don't think this man
Speaker 1: has any clue what awaits him when he actually has
Speaker 1: to go toe to toe with Trump and the other
Speaker 1: Republican would be contenders here, but hey, you never know.
Speaker 1: Seems pretty clear though he intends to try. So that's
Speaker 1: a big takeaway digging into this thing. And there was
Speaker 1: a reporting this morning about exactly and if you want
Speaker 1: to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue become a premium
Speaker 1: subscriber today at breakingpoints dot com, we've been talking a
Speaker 1: lot about health and fitness and about big food, his
Speaker 1: influence and his corruption of higher institutions. So we got
Speaker 1: a great guest standing by Callie Means, he's the co
Speaker 1: founder of Truemed. Really caught our eye with a viral
Speaker 1: Twitter thread about how he personally actually helped to lobby
Speaker 1: the NAACP and other groups in order to try and
Speaker 1: include sugar subsidies in the food stamp program. Let's put
Speaker 1: that up there on the screen. I even did a
Speaker 1: monologue on some of us, but Cali, we wanted to
Speaker 1: sit and talk with you a bit about this. So
Speaker 1: first of all, why are you coming forward now? Why
Speaker 1: is this something that you want to talk about? What
Speaker 1: has inspired you in order to begin this discussion and
Speaker 1: to really become a fighter for exposing some of the
Speaker 1: inequities and inadequacies in our food system right now? In
Speaker 1: political corruption? Honestly, I had several experiences that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans deal with a close family member
Speaker 1: died of cancer and digging into that several years ago,
Speaker 1: my mother pa greatic cancer is highly tied to blood triguters,
Speaker 1: regulation highly tied to food. She was one of the
Speaker 1: fifty percent of Americans who was pre diabetic or diabetic.
Speaker 1: And when you peel back the onion, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, depression,
Speaker 1: many of these elements that are hobbling the American people
Speaker 1: are highly tied to our broken food system. Become very
Speaker 1: passionate about that issue and working to change that. And
Speaker 1: that really brought me back early in my career, you know,
Speaker 1: working in politics, which inevitably leads you to consulting after
Speaker 1: the campaigns, and sitting around the table with some of
Speaker 1: these food executives, some of these farm executives, and it
Speaker 1: brought back some memories I wanted to speak out about
Speaker 1: because I believe our food system is rigged, and our
Speaker 1: healthcare system stands buyingprofits from that, they stand silent. I
Speaker 1: think that's all very well said. Let's just start with
Speaker 1: the basics. What does research tell us about sugar and
Speaker 1: the amount of sugar that the typical American consumes and
Speaker 1: what impact it has on their health. Well, an average
Speaker 1: child right now is eating one hundred times more sugar
Speaker 1: than they did one hundred years ago. This is evolutionarily unprecedented,
Speaker 1: and you know the foundation of our diet and it's
Speaker 1: really taken me a while to even understand this. We
Speaker 1: know our diets bad, but the foundation is added sugar.
Speaker 1: It's processed grains, and processed grains didn't exist until a
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. The processing totally changes. It takes the
Speaker 1: fiber off, you know, so it shelf stable, but there's
Speaker 1: almost no nutritional value. That turns into glucose in the
Speaker 1: blood as well. It's hidden sugar, so it becomes addictive,
Speaker 1: you know, and very metabolical and healthy. And then the
Speaker 1: third thing is seed oils. You look at any label
Speaker 1: of any food, even if it's organic, healthy food, it's
Speaker 1: canol oil, soybean oil. These were also invented the last
Speaker 1: one hundred years, really propped up by grain subsidies and
Speaker 1: the food subsidies, highly inflammatory, highly processed. So our diet
Speaker 1: has become much cheaper. We spent about half on food
Speaker 1: as other developed countries, and you know a lot of
Speaker 1: processes that are illegal in other countries. You know, this
Speaker 1: isn't from a free market, it's from a rigg market,
Speaker 1: and that's leading to twenty five percent childhood pre diabetes.
Speaker 1: Fifty percent. As I mentioned adult pre diabetes, diabetes, ninety
Speaker 1: three percent of Americans right now, I've metabolic dysfunction, and
Speaker 1: that's the basis of disease and why we're seeing an
Speaker 1: increase in so many conditions, both large like fatigue and depression.
Speaker 1: You know, twenty five percent of Americans right now are
Speaker 1: on a mental health health medication, which is just kind
Speaker 1: of hard to wrap your head around up until increases
Speaker 1: and you know, heart disease, diabetes, there's things that are
Speaker 1: actually leading to a lowered life expecdency. For the longest
Speaker 1: period since eighteen sixty in America, we're actually dramatically seeing
Speaker 1: you know, life expensing lower right now, which doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. Yes, exactly, and it's like not just a
Speaker 1: COVID story. It's been happening now quite some time. Been
Speaker 1: tracking it here for a while. Can you talk specifically
Speaker 1: about the political machinations that big food used, You know,
Speaker 1: you can talk specifically about the NAACP example, that was
Speaker 1: one from quite a while ago, but there's an ongoing
Speaker 1: problem right now in terms of big food leveraging political
Speaker 1: conditions to try and create subsidies for government programs and
Speaker 1: dupe the American public. Yeah, well, I think my experience
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve really actually ties very well today. So
Speaker 1: just real quick. The playbook I saw in twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: as you pointed out a couple of days ago, was
Speaker 1: there's a three part playbook. We went directly to the
Speaker 1: NAACP and the Hispanic Federation, very respected civil rights groups,
Speaker 1: and it was a quid pro quoill Coke paid them
Speaker 1: millions of dollars and they labeled the opponent's racist. There's
Speaker 1: a tweet in the New York Times that I that
Speaker 1: I put out for Contemporary from twenty twelve where I
Speaker 1: talked about this and that shuts down debate and then
Speaker 1: conservative think tanks. You know, I grew up conservative, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to change the world. I interned at the Heritage Foundation,
Speaker 1: like a good young conservative does, and I was despondent
Speaker 1: to see that we would walk in with soda executives,
Speaker 1: farmer executives the Heritage Foundation and ordering a slanted study
Speaker 1: was very transactional. And then the most important I think
Speaker 1: is research institutions coc and processed foods spend eleven times
Speaker 1: more funding nutrition research than the NIH and that's led
Speaker 1: to Harvard studies saying sugar doesn't cause obesity that led
Speaker 1: to the disastrous food pyramid, but it actually ties to
Speaker 1: today now the pre eminent study from the NIH and
Speaker 1: Tough Nutrition School, you know, it says that lucky charms
Speaker 1: are three times more healthy than beef and systemically overrates
Speaker 1: processed food versus whole food. And that's going into childhood
Speaker 1: nutrition guidelines today. And I think where this circle is
Speaker 1: completely finished is you have farmer profiting now. Of course,
Speaker 1: you have Pharma who in the health industry who said
Speaker 1: nothing about ten percent of food stamps funding going to
Speaker 1: diabetes water now pushing the American people to pay for
Speaker 1: an injection, a weekly miracle obese cure for forty percent
Speaker 1: of US teams. Forty of teens right now are a
Speaker 1: beast according to the CDC, and we're being told by
Speaker 1: all of our elite medical apparatusus that we need to
Speaker 1: give them this miracle CURL, which is a weekly injection
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives. They're not able to
Speaker 1: stop it. Of course, that won't stop the meeting inflammatory
Speaker 1: food which damaged theirselves and will inevitably do a lot
Speaker 1: of other diseases. What do you think our solutions here.
Speaker 1: I remember back a while ago in New York City,
Speaker 1: there was an effort, I believe, under Michael Bloomberg to
Speaker 1: just like ban large vessels of soda, like the big
Speaker 1: gulp level of soda outright. There was a big public
Speaker 1: education campaign. They had all these like very provocative sort
Speaker 1: of ads on the subway and other places showing how
Speaker 1: bad for you soda ultimately was. But what do you
Speaker 1: see as a potential solution, because I mean his effort
Speaker 1: to ban big gulps led to this huge culture war
Speaker 1: backlash and nanny state conversation and all of that. So
Speaker 1: do you think that's the right approach or do you
Speaker 1: have other approaches in mind? No, I listen, our kids
Speaker 1: are are really interest I think any parents sees that,
Speaker 1: and and that's why this tweet resonated. Now there's a
Speaker 1: couple of things that I think are absolutely by no brainers,
Speaker 1: and I think this is the Bypowerson issue of our time.
Speaker 1: So first on, not even in the political sphere. I
Speaker 1: think Bill Lackman, you know, has spoken out about this,
Speaker 1: retweeted what I what I put, and said, you know,
Speaker 1: billionaires need to start funding you know, class action lawsuit
Speaker 1: because you know, the only difference between what the soda
Speaker 1: companies done and the cigarette companies have done is soda
Speaker 1: is an order of magnitude worse. I mean, what these
Speaker 1: companies have knowingly done and the devastation they brought on
Speaker 1: really just the cells of our of our children, which
Speaker 1: has led to a mass dysfunction. So I think that's
Speaker 1: a that's a private sector route. I think you I've
Speaker 1: interestingly been contacted by members of Congress on the left
Speaker 1: and the right. I think you have both on the
Speaker 1: left and the right, this new crop of members of
Speaker 1: Congress who are arnest tied to special interest, a little
Speaker 1: bit more on the populist wing, and and they're actually
Speaker 1: joining the ad Committee and joining, you know, really passionate
Speaker 1: about this issue and want to call Coke and PEPSI
Speaker 1: executives in and then before we even talk about taxes,
Speaker 1: before we talk about bands. I'm actually a libertarian. I
Speaker 1: think all drugs should be legal, but for most. But
Speaker 1: I don't think we should be paying tens of billions
Speaker 1: to stell dollars to subsidize them for kids, which is
Speaker 1: what we're doing. So let's reform food stamps again. That's
Speaker 1: a program that fifteen percent of Americans depend on for nutrition.
Speaker 1: Ten percent of it goes to sugar water. Right, and
Speaker 1: let's talk about the grain subsidies. The grain substies are
Speaker 1: the absolutely, I believe, most evil and nonsensical public policy
Speaker 1: in America. We are subsidizing, right, the grains and the
Speaker 1: corn which turns into high food to scorn sugar. That's
Speaker 1: weaponizing our food. That's directly leading to trillions of dollars
Speaker 1: of downstream medical costs of the the American taxpayer. So it's
Speaker 1: like we're paying for it and then literally paying trillions
Speaker 1: of dollars to the point that it's literally going to
Speaker 1: bankrupt our country. You know, it's twenty percent of healthcare
Speaker 1: spinning now. But healthcare is the fastest growing and largest
Speaker 1: industry in the United States and that's not slowing down,
Speaker 1: and we're subsidizing that. And the last thing, just real
Speaker 1: quick is we've got to just ask from an incentive perspective.
Speaker 1: The problem with healthcare is that ninety five percent of
Speaker 1: costs are interventions on people that are sick. That's how
Speaker 1: healthcare works right now, every single institution is incentivized for
Speaker 1: more Americans to be sicker for a longer periods of time. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't think there are that many evil people in
Speaker 1: the system, but that's exactly what's happening, and sintif speak,
Speaker 1: it's larger than any one person. So you know, my
Speaker 1: company is interested in this. FSAHSSA. These tax free accounts
Speaker 1: give consumers choice. You can actually use those for healthy
Speaker 1: food and exercise, which is where we need to get to.
Speaker 1: We need to actually, you know, subsidize and incentivize with
Speaker 1: healthcare policy, real root cause cures. So I think reforming
Speaker 1: and expanding HSA, this consumer choice and steering people to
Speaker 1: do root cause solutions is very important too. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: we really appreciate Joinings Cali is very informative segment and
Speaker 1: we appreciate it very much. Thanks man, Thanks all lot. Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for watching. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: We've got a great Counterpoints show for all of you
Speaker 1: tomorrow than Breaking Points on Thursday. Don't forget about the
Speaker 1: live show, tickets and all of that, and enjoy the show.
Speaker 1: It's fun to have Counterpoints on Wednesdays. I like it. Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: love you guys. We'll see you Thursday.