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, Brystal? Indeed,
Speaker 1: we do lots of interesting things that we are looking
Speaker 1: at this morning. We have new polling about what Americans
Speaker 1: say is the number one problem in the country. You
Speaker 1: might be surprised it has changed recently. We also have
Speaker 1: news about how Wall Street is positioning themselves for this
Speaker 1: debt ceiling showdown. Long story short, they're feeling kind of
Speaker 1: comfortable because they think they'll get paid even if veterans, seniors,
Speaker 1: the poor, whatever do without. They think bondholders are going
Speaker 1: to get theirs front of the line. So we'll talk
Speaker 1: about all of that. We also have some kind of
Speaker 1: interesting twenty twenty four news. First of all, Ronda Santis
Speaker 1: assembling a team will take you inside of that. But
Speaker 1: also some question marks around whether Kamala Harris is going
Speaker 1: to be on the ticket with Joe Biden, so some
Speaker 1: little inside dirt there. We also have a just shockingly
Speaker 1: horrific story about the way that big Pharma gougeous consumers gouge'
Speaker 1: is the US government. I mean, listen, none of this
Speaker 1: is going to be surprising to you, but the scope
Speaker 1: and scale of what we're going to detail for you
Speaker 1: is truly horrifying. Also, some huge fallout in the used
Speaker 1: car market. As you know, during the pandemic, used car
Speaker 1: market was through the roof. I mean you could barely
Speaker 1: get your hands on these things. Companies like Carvana just
Speaker 1: took off, skyrocketed, taking in all this capital, making big acquisitions.
Speaker 1: Well now, not to use a bad pun, the wheels
Speaker 1: are coming off of the industry and some major potential
Speaker 1: fallout there. Also, speaking of fallout, things not going so
Speaker 1: well for our friends at CNN, some of the worst
Speaker 1: ratings that they have had in history. The new shuffling
Speaker 1: of the lineup doesn't seem to be working out for them.
Speaker 1: And the new head of CNN, Chrislick, just gave a
Speaker 1: new interview revealing some of the details of his plans
Speaker 1: and how he thinks that things are ultimately going. But
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and start with what is going on
Speaker 1: with regard to the debt ceiling. Let's go and put
Speaker 1: this first element up on the screen. So this is
Speaker 1: the first part before we get to the debt ceiling.
Speaker 1: How Americans are feeling about our country, about our government.
Speaker 1: New pulling from Gallup asking citizens, what is the most
Speaker 1: important problem in the US? Now? Up until recently was inflation.
Speaker 1: Now it has switched mid concerns about that debt ceiling,
Speaker 1: potentially fallout from the MESSI Kevin McCarthy leadership fight. Now
Speaker 1: you have the government slash poor leadership as the number
Speaker 1: one issue that voters cite as problems facing the US.
Speaker 1: Inflation now comes in second, immigration now comes in third,
Speaker 1: and economy in general coming in fourth. Now I do
Speaker 1: kind of look at these things and I'm sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: inflation the economy in general, Like you could kind of
Speaker 1: put those two together and say, Okay, the economy overall
Speaker 1: is still the number one problem. But I do think
Speaker 1: it's significant that over just the past month, you've had
Speaker 1: a significant uptick in the number of Americans saying that
Speaker 1: the biggest problem facing the country is the government itself. Also,
Speaker 1: by the way, in terms of how people are feeling
Speaker 1: about the economy, you've got more than four and five
Speaker 1: US adults rating economic conditions in the country as only
Speaker 1: fair or poor. This is especially relevant given the fact
Speaker 1: that the Biden team thinks they're going to run on
Speaker 1: the strong economy, when four and five adults say the
Speaker 1: economy is not strong at all, it's fair or poor.
Speaker 1: So that's important to note. You also still have seventy
Speaker 1: two percent of Americans saying the economy is getting worse,
Speaker 1: only twenty two percent say that it is improving, four
Speaker 1: percent say that it is staying the same. And back
Speaker 1: to what Americans think is the biggest problem facing the country.
Speaker 1: You know there is some unity between the parties, at
Speaker 1: least in the top issue. Let's go and put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen. So government ranks as the top
Speaker 1: problem for both Democrats and Republicans, and they throw in
Speaker 1: their Republican leaning independence, Democratic leading independence. So for Republicans
Speaker 1: it's twenty four percent site government is the biggest problem
Speaker 1: Democrats not that far behind though, at eighteen percent. From
Speaker 1: there the list diverges someonet Inflation is the number two
Speaker 1: issue for both Republicans and Democrats. For the Republican side
Speaker 1: it is tied with immigration. Then from there you have
Speaker 1: some divergence. You have economy in general. Again, that's one
Speaker 1: is shared, but Democrats more concerned than Republicans on unifying
Speaker 1: the country and race relations. But pretty remarkable when you
Speaker 1: have both Democrats and Republicans saying the government is the
Speaker 1: biggest problem. Now they probably mean very different things when
Speaker 1: they say that. It is a sort of like very
Speaker 1: general term. You could be criticizing any number of aspects
Speaker 1: of the government, but I think in general, the sense
Speaker 1: that you know, we're headed to this showdown, things are messy,
Speaker 1: they're not delivering for me, They're not able to get
Speaker 1: their act together and really deliver for the American people
Speaker 1: is shaping this view. What I found most interesting about
Speaker 1: it was the percent increase so in remember to December,
Speaker 1: during the mid terms and almost in the immediate aftermath,
Speaker 1: it was people who were saying that the government was
Speaker 1: at fifteen percent, saying that it was their top most
Speaker 1: important problem, and actually they had the economy in general
Speaker 1: and inflation above it. But then you have the percent
Speaker 1: change so dramatically from fifteen to twenty one percent, just
Speaker 1: dramatically coming all the way up to the top. And
Speaker 1: like you said, I'm not so sure how exactly you
Speaker 1: can rate that. You could look at it maybe from
Speaker 1: a Democrat's perspective, You're like, well, the government's now the
Speaker 1: problem because the Republicans took over the House. Maybe that's it.
Speaker 1: They look at the speakership fight, same with the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: They could say, well, now the government is especially more
Speaker 1: of the problem because we had an election and the
Speaker 1: Democrats still controlled the Senate, so now we have a
Speaker 1: pure gridlock, and that means not the thing is going
Speaker 1: to happen. I think it probably goes a level deeper
Speaker 1: than that on a bipartisan level. And it's been two years.
Speaker 1: I got the news yesterday that Biden's going to end
Speaker 1: the pandemic in May. I'm like, okay, well, I guess
Speaker 1: it didn't even know needed to be ended, but legally
Speaker 1: that stuff matters. I think there's just a general sense
Speaker 1: of malaise of the last three years. It's just been horrible,
Speaker 1: and whenever you have bad leadership two years in a row, bipartisan,
Speaker 1: different houses, and all that changing, and nothing actually does
Speaker 1: change whenever. It's probably called for more than ever in
Speaker 1: modern history, at least since what nine to eleven, And
Speaker 1: then you look at it and nothing has really gotten done,
Speaker 1: and we can't really agree on anything. The partisanship seems
Speaker 1: worse than ever. Intractable problems seem just as intractable. You
Speaker 1: have no choice but to say it is the government.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what to do with that information.
Speaker 1: I think it's actually very sad. I think it is
Speaker 1: too actually, as someone who believes in, you know, an
Speaker 1: ideal functioning government as an important force in American life
Speaker 1: and in global life as well, you know, as I
Speaker 1: think about situating it in this exact context, I do
Speaker 1: think there's something about the specifics of the moment where,
Speaker 1: you know, number one, there there were some things that
Speaker 1: did get done when you had democratic control. You had
Speaker 1: the Chips Act, you had you know, the burn Pit legislation,
Speaker 1: you had the Inflation Reduction Act. You did have a
Speaker 1: few pee you had the bipartisan infrastructure deal, you did
Speaker 1: had a very limited bipartisan gun deal. Even so, you
Speaker 1: did have some limited things happening. Now there's an expectation
Speaker 1: before the next presidential election, nothing is going to happen
Speaker 1: except for, you know, a potentially catastrophic default on the debt,
Speaker 1: a lot of partisan you know, showdowns and haggling, you know,
Speaker 1: these sort of like which Hunt type committees to look
Speaker 1: at Hunter Biden, but never to examine anything that Trump
Speaker 1: or his people ever did. And so I think there
Speaker 1: is that sense setting in and I think there's a
Speaker 1: real warning in here for both Republicans and for Democrats.
Speaker 1: I mean, number one, listen the politics of how this
Speaker 1: is going to work with some sort of debt sealing,
Speaker 1: hostage taking situation, which it seems like we are inevitably
Speaker 1: headed towards, because that is the deal Kevin McCarthy made
Speaker 1: with the holdowns and his caucus people are not going
Speaker 1: to be impressed with you taking the country to the
Speaker 1: edge and potentially over So I think there is a
Speaker 1: micro timeline, major warning for Republicans in the direction that
Speaker 1: they're headed in. But you know, when you have these
Speaker 1: increasingly negative feelings about the government overall, and this is
Speaker 1: what we've seen over the past forty years, you know,
Speaker 1: that is a really bad situation for Democrats who tend
Speaker 1: to be more the party of government to be in.
Speaker 1: So in this micro battle it might work out poorly
Speaker 1: for Republicans, but overall you lose the specifics of who
Speaker 1: did what and who was to blame over time, and
Speaker 1: the general sense that is left is just the government fails,
Speaker 1: the govern doesn't work, the government cannot work. And again,
Speaker 1: I think that's a really damaging position for Democrats if
Speaker 1: you're looking at it from a partisan perspective. But I
Speaker 1: also think for the possibility of moving the nation forward
Speaker 1: over the long term because listen, as much as like
Speaker 1: we complain about the government here and the corruption and
Speaker 1: the money in politics and the way that they sell
Speaker 1: out the interests of citizens all the time, there is
Speaker 1: no other body that can check the gigantic influence of
Speaker 1: corporate dominance in American society. There is no other institution
Speaker 1: that can make sure you know, food is safe and
Speaker 1: water is clean and the basics of what citizens should
Speaker 1: expect out of life are ultimately meant. So I look
Speaker 1: at it level of like small D democratic input. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: what impact can we have on exon CEO and gas prices? Actually? None?
Speaker 1: All right, what do you have when it comes to
Speaker 1: the strategy, patroleum reserve and our foreign relations with Russia
Speaker 1: a lot. And as we have found out over the
Speaker 1: last year or so, well, that is going to have
Speaker 1: a very major impact on our consumer is whether we
Speaker 1: like it or not. So you can hate the government,
Speaker 1: but the government is still going to think quite a
Speaker 1: lot about you. So I would always behoove people to
Speaker 1: think about the government. Yes, indeed, all right, so let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about the debt seiling. This
Speaker 1: is a really really important piece because ultimately, you know,
Speaker 1: in these various showdowns, the thing that really forces these
Speaker 1: politicians to the table is when the donor sit set
Speaker 1: gets unhappy, and in particular, when Wall Street becomes unhappy.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that could have potentially saved
Speaker 1: us from a debt seiling showdown and ultimately going over
Speaker 1: the edge and having some sort of default is if
Speaker 1: Wall Street is putting a lot of pressure on all
Speaker 1: of the politicians that they have bought, saying this is
Speaker 1: going to be bad for us, this is going to
Speaker 1: be bad for the economy. Well, there's quite a bit
Speaker 1: of new reporting that says, actually Wall Street is kind
Speaker 1: of chilling. They're not worried about this at all. Why
Speaker 1: Because they think even if there is a default that they,
Speaker 1: as bondholders, will be in line to get their payments first.
Speaker 1: So they're looking at the state of affairs and going,
Speaker 1: this has no skin off my back. I'm still going
Speaker 1: to get mine, even as you who knows what's going
Speaker 1: to happen with Social Security payments, payments to veterans, you know,
Speaker 1: basic welfare, children's health insurance, all of these critical programs
Speaker 1: that ordinary people rely on, Well those are in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: They don't care about that. Go ahead and put this
Speaker 1: up on the screen from Politico. Here's what they say.
Speaker 1: They say Wall streeters break with Biden on the debt limit.
Speaker 1: In this report, they say that these Wall Street bankers
Speaker 1: are quote unquote banking on the Treasury Department's ability to
Speaker 1: prioritize payments so that bondholders keep getting paid with the
Speaker 1: limited cash available. Such a move would hypothetically potentially avoid
Speaker 1: a global market crash, given that treasuries are the bedrock
Speaker 1: of the international financial system. The global Chair of Research
Speaker 1: at Barclay's says, most investors who follow US closely are
Speaker 1: very aware the US will not default on its bond.
Speaker 1: So again translation we're going to get paid, so we're
Speaker 1: not that worried about it. Now, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: pushback on this idea that you can just go ahead
Speaker 1: and pay the bondholders and not worry about the other
Speaker 1: stuff and it won't technically be a default. Treasury secretary.
Speaker 1: Former Treasury Secretary Jack Luke told this political reporter that
Speaker 1: this notion is intellectually bankrupt because at the minute that
Speaker 1: you have the US government not meaning its obligations, whether
Speaker 1: it's to bondholders or to anyone else, you are technically
Speaker 1: in default. And you're also in uncharted territory in terms
Speaker 1: of what the financial fallout is ultimately going on. So
Speaker 1: what I've heard is is that this is a real
Speaker 1: scenario that would happen with the debt sealing. And the
Speaker 1: reason why is even if Congress does not appropriate funding
Speaker 1: to the government, the government has all kites of revenue sources.
Speaker 1: So for example, let's say this is all going down
Speaker 1: in the summer, well, guess what, they just banked a
Speaker 1: ton of tax revenue during tax season. Also, people who
Speaker 1: pay on a quarterly basis, so they can use that
Speaker 1: revenue to pay some obligation, So they actually do have
Speaker 1: some discretionary authority because that's not congressionally appropriated money. That's
Speaker 1: money that's coming in via taxes, now what. And that's
Speaker 1: why the Wall streeters are feeling very comfortable because they
Speaker 1: think that what Treasury Department will do is in a
Speaker 1: bid to prop up at least some of the global
Speaker 1: financial system, they're going to hit the bondholders first and
Speaker 1: not pay out you know, VA benefits or oh, I
Speaker 1: mean the list goes on forever, like pensions in terms
Speaker 1: of health services, medicare, like many of these things which
Speaker 1: are or discretionary spending within the budget, where Treasury Department
Speaker 1: is actually much wonkier on what they can and can't
Speaker 1: do as opposed to these independent agencies which happen to
Speaker 1: benefit the disproportionately rich in the Wall streets, Yes, and
Speaker 1: Wall Street. And this is something we've been talking about
Speaker 1: since the beginning of you know, during Kevin McCarthy showdown.
Speaker 1: In all of this, this was one of the things
Speaker 1: that Republicans were talking about, is we're going to come
Speaker 1: up with our plan of how we're going to prioritize
Speaker 1: payments so if there's not enough money coming in and
Speaker 1: we're going to come up with a plan of how
Speaker 1: to prioritize all of the it's like ten million pay
Speaker 1: payments that have to go out from the federal government.
Speaker 1: We're going to decide who are the winners and losers
Speaker 1: in this ultimate battle to come. Now, the last time
Speaker 1: we faced a debt ceiling showed on it was like
Speaker 1: twenty eleven twenty twelve. They came up with some theoretical Okay,
Speaker 1: if we hit the wall, if we go over the ledge,
Speaker 1: what is this going to look like? How is this
Speaker 1: all going to work out? So they have kind of
Speaker 1: been through this intellectual exercise before, but it has never
Speaker 1: actually come to implementing this plan. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: a big difference between theoretically having this list of ten
Speaker 1: million payments and how it's all going to work and
Speaker 1: actually coordinating that and making it happen. Not to mention, Okay,
Speaker 1: even if they're able to pull off that incredibly technically
Speaker 1: complex feet again, you don't know how the global financial
Speaker 1: system is going to react to the fact that the
Speaker 1: US government is not meaning all of its obligations, even
Speaker 1: if it is meaning the obligations of the bondholders. It
Speaker 1: is disgusting and immoral that the economic royalists would get
Speaker 1: paid first, while you have like you know, veterans who
Speaker 1: are not getting their benefits or old people who are
Speaker 1: starving because they're not getting their Social Security checks on time,
Speaker 1: et cetera. So it is still a disastrous situation, It's
Speaker 1: just not one that Wall Street is particularly concerned about.
Speaker 1: New York Times has similar reporting. Hadn't put this up
Speaker 1: on the screen, They say Wall Street is counting on
Speaker 1: a debt limit trick that could entail trouble. If the
Speaker 1: debt limit is breached, investors expect Chargery to put bond
Speaker 1: payments first. It would be politically and practically fraught. One
Speaker 1: former chief economist to Republican Center Rob Portman, who went
Speaker 1: through this exercise back the last time that we were
Speaker 1: talking about these sort of dead limit fights, said, prioritization
Speaker 1: is really default by another name. It is not defaulting
Speaker 1: on the government's debt, but it is defaulting on its obligation.
Speaker 1: But another analyst at Bank of America says that prioritization
Speaker 1: is the lynchpin of calmness. Markets will come to expect
Speaker 1: a prioritization plan much more than they did back in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven. And so you really have a mix of
Speaker 1: views on this, on whether it's feasible at all, on
Speaker 1: whether it will actually calm global markets, But it seems
Speaker 1: as of now most of Wall Street is kind of
Speaker 1: relaxed about this prospect, which, again, the reason that matters
Speaker 1: is because these are people who, like it or not,
Speaker 1: have disproportionate influence in Washington, and so if they aren't
Speaker 1: pushing people to find a resolution to this and make
Speaker 1: sure that we don't ultimately default, that is another chip
Speaker 1: in favor of y'all. We may actually go over the
Speaker 1: ledge here and it could be a gigantic mess and
Speaker 1: a disaster. Yeah, it's important for that. We all know.
Speaker 1: We're talking about this with yesterday with Jeff Stein. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: this could all seem like doom and gloom. Like, listen,
Speaker 1: we're close. You never know how close we're going to get,
Speaker 1: and we bear you know. I'm actually going back and
Speaker 1: reading Bob Woodward wrote a pretty good book about the
Speaker 1: twenty eleven debt crisis. I'm trying to become as familiar
Speaker 1: I am with the exact decision points. We came pretty
Speaker 1: damn close to a default the last time around. We
Speaker 1: actually had some degrade in our debt downgrading in our
Speaker 1: debt that had some pretty big impacts at the time
Speaker 1: on financial markets. One of the only reasons that we
Speaker 1: were really able to rescue ourselves out of it is
Speaker 1: that we were in a zero interest rate environment, so
Speaker 1: that whenever we came out, you know things, we had
Speaker 1: a bit of a malaise on the way back up
Speaker 1: in this quote unquote fake economic recovery that Obama touted
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. Now, you know, we don't have the
Speaker 1: same cushion that we had at that time, So, you know,
Speaker 1: going off the edge, like you always point to Britain,
Speaker 1: who the hell knows where you end up. You really
Speaker 1: have no idea what the consequence is going to look like. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. And if you are someone who was
Speaker 1: concerned about the debt and the interest payments that are
Speaker 1: going out while having some sort of default and bondholders
Speaker 1: demanding a premium, means those interest costs are going up
Speaker 1: and you're actually going backwards now in terms of the
Speaker 1: goals that you are at least pretending to uphold. There's
Speaker 1: one other piece of this, which is you know, sort
Speaker 1: of moving target and interesting, which is that Republicans have
Speaker 1: decided they want to have this fight. They've decided they
Speaker 1: want to have this showdown over the debt ceiling to
Speaker 1: cut spending, even though you know, during the Trump administration
Speaker 1: they didn't care, but now that it's a Democrat in
Speaker 1: the White House, they do care. So the Dirntey secret
Speaker 1: is they don't agree whatsoever on what they actually want
Speaker 1: to cut. So CNN has a report they are apparently
Speaker 1: working behind the scenes to try to hash out what
Speaker 1: their demands would be to raise the debt limit. Do
Speaker 1: we have this guy's a five that we can put
Speaker 1: up on the screen from CNN, Here we go. New
Speaker 1: Republicans weigh debt ceiling demands ahead of McCarthy Biden, meaning
Speaker 1: group of hardliners met Fridays. They weigh options onying major
Speaker 1: cuts to domestic a trim to defense, but don't want
Speaker 1: to touch those security and medicare okay. Well, guess what, guys,
Speaker 1: If you are going to cut as much as a
Speaker 1: lot of these hardliners want you to cut, is very
Speaker 1: difficult to do that without touching entitlements ultimately, I mean,
Speaker 1: the math just really doesn't work out that well. Social
Speaker 1: Security alone takes up about twenty one percent of the
Speaker 1: federal government spent in the last fiscal year. Healthcare pro programs,
Speaker 1: namely Medicare, Medicaid, Children's Health insurance program, and Affordable Care
Speaker 1: Act subsidies account for about twenty five percent of the budget.
Speaker 1: So already you're talking about about half of the budget
Speaker 1: between healthcare, social security, and then the rest of the
Speaker 1: budget goes to a range of discretionary domestic programs, including
Speaker 1: thirteen percent for defense and national security. So you add
Speaker 1: defense into the mix, and you're getting close to, like
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're up over well over half of
Speaker 1: the budget. And these are all items that many parts
Speaker 1: of the Republican Caucus are saying, no, no, no no, we
Speaker 1: don't want to touch any of that. Okay, well where
Speaker 1: are the cuts that going to ultimately come from, So
Speaker 1: we'll see if they're able to work that out. And
Speaker 1: then the other there were two other pieces in this
Speaker 1: CNN article that were really no whether they're me soccer.
Speaker 1: First of all, I didn't realize there were a few
Speaker 1: members of the Republican Caucus who were just saying they
Speaker 1: will not raise the dead ceiling under any circumstance, just
Speaker 1: totally no to any even if they get all the
Speaker 1: cuts or whatever they want. No, we will not vote
Speaker 1: to raise it, which to me seems utterly ridiculous and
Speaker 1: insane to give you a sense of what mcarthy is
Speaker 1: dealing with on that's side. And the other thing that
Speaker 1: I thought was one of the dumbest things I've ever
Speaker 1: seen in my life, the quote unquote problem Solver's Caucus.
Speaker 1: This is like the bipartisan corporatist caucus that they were like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is Gotttheimer and the salt tax is
Speaker 1: that crew. They have a potential contingency plan. They're working
Speaker 1: on a proposal that would, in part, try to set
Speaker 1: a ratio for the allowable amount of US debt compared
Speaker 1: to the country's GDP and develop a plan for budget
Speaker 1: cuts if that level is breached. The group is consulting
Speaker 1: outside experts to help draft the proposal. Now that might
Speaker 1: sound reasonable in theory, However, think about the situation you're in.
Speaker 1: If the GDP is going backwards, that means you're in
Speaker 1: a recession. A recession is the time when you need
Speaker 1: to prime the pump and spend a little more money
Speaker 1: so that people can get the economy rolling again. Instead,
Speaker 1: what this plan would require is that you cut spending,
Speaker 1: likely thereby deepening the recession, likely thereby forcing even more
Speaker 1: cuts to spending in a downward doom loop. That's what
Speaker 1: these idiots are trying to put on the table for us.
Speaker 1: So just really galaxy brain thinking all the way around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean overall, I just think that people aren't paying
Speaker 1: as much attention because they're still a couple of months away.
Speaker 1: But the initial shape of the fight is beginning to
Speaker 1: take place in some of the negotiation arounds who gets paid, what,
Speaker 1: what can realists be cut, etc. That's why we're spending
Speaker 1: so much time, just because it could have a huge
Speaker 1: impact on all of us really government services, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of things really could shut down. I've even
Speaker 1: seen speculation the FAA itself, all flights could be grounded
Speaker 1: if we went into a It's one of those completely
Speaker 1: unprecedented areas and you can't even imagine the trillions of
Speaker 1: dollars that it could wreak on the economy if we
Speaker 1: do go over the line. Yeah, because people here like, oh,
Speaker 1: discretionary spending, well, you could probably cut there, and then
Speaker 1: you realize that that includes like the FAA budget, and
Speaker 1: it means that airplanes don't fly or literally, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, there are no food inspections and now the
Speaker 1: baby formulas tainted again or whatever. So it sounds in
Speaker 1: theory like, oh, I'm sure we could cut here and there,
Speaker 1: But in reality, some of these programs are incredibly crucial
Speaker 1: to the functioning of American life that we don't even
Speaker 1: really realize, not to mention the global financial fallout. So
Speaker 1: last thing I'll say on this why we're covering it,
Speaker 1: why it's important, why there's a real possibility no one
Speaker 1: knows what percent that we end up in a sort
Speaker 1: of catastrophic situation, is because it really seems like none
Speaker 1: of the political actors here have an incentive to change
Speaker 1: their initial negotiating position. If you're Kevin McCarthy and you
Speaker 1: back down on the debt ceiling, your speakership is over,
Speaker 1: I mean really clear for him. For the sort of
Speaker 1: hardliners in his caucus, I mean, their whole like clout
Speaker 1: and cred, etc. Is from posturing as these kind of
Speaker 1: kamakaze maniacs. So they're definitely not going to back down
Speaker 1: because it would go against their entire identity and brand.
Speaker 1: On the Biden side, I think you know, justifiably their
Speaker 1: view and they learn some from the twenty eleven crisis too,
Speaker 1: is we are not going to negotiate with hostage shakers.
Speaker 1: We're not going to give into your demands when you are,
Speaker 1: you know, unre reasonable and just using this hijacking the
Speaker 1: global economy to try to force on the public something
Speaker 1: that you could not achieve through democratic means. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's a reasonable position. I also think that
Speaker 1: the democratic base would be disgusted if there was some
Speaker 1: sort of a deal cut with the Biden White House
Speaker 1: on Social Security, Medicare or these other entitlement spending, so
Speaker 1: you know, they aren't really positioned to back down either.
Speaker 1: And then when you add to the mixed wall street
Speaker 1: basically like now we're cool with it, it's fine, you
Speaker 1: end up with a really disturbing situation. So listen, we've
Speaker 1: been to these deadlines and walls before. They've found a
Speaker 1: way to work through it and it hasn't resulted in
Speaker 1: a total catastrophic collapse. But there are reasons to be
Speaker 1: concerned this time that it is worth keeping our eye on. YEP.
Speaker 1: I really hope that it works out. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the latest twenty twenty fours upon us and
Speaker 1: there are new news articles popping up about whether or
Speaker 1: not Kamala Harris really has what it takes to continue
Speaker 1: as vice resident. Is Joe Biden's pick for vice president.
Speaker 1: It's going to put this up on the screen from
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. It's always noteworthy when you get elite
Speaker 1: media like the Post or the Times writing these types
Speaker 1: of stories, because that means that political elites are basically
Speaker 1: planting these stories with the Post and with other outlets
Speaker 1: headline here, some Democrats are worried about Harris's political prospects
Speaker 1: at a pivotal point in Biden's term. Many party activists
Speaker 1: are not sure the vice president has shown she is
Speaker 1: up to winning the top job. And of course, obvious
Speaker 1: context here is when you're talking about Joe Biden being
Speaker 1: potentially you know, if he wins reelect eighty six years
Speaker 1: old at the end of his next term, there's a
Speaker 1: real question whether he even makes it through that term,
Speaker 1: then she would step right into that top job. And
Speaker 1: if he does make it through that term, she would
Speaker 1: be the obvious like next in line to take the
Speaker 1: helm as the Democratic nominee. So in this article they
Speaker 1: interviewed all of these like state level party activists and
Speaker 1: and something like a dozen of them offered concerns about,
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not she is up to the task.
Speaker 1: They say. Such concerns about Harris's political strength were repeated
Speaker 1: often by more than a dozen Democratic leaders in key
Speaker 1: states interviewed for the story. So I'm speaking on the
Speaker 1: condition of anonymity to convey candid thus to give you
Speaker 1: one example of the type of concerns that are being raised.
Speaker 1: The former chair of the Cobb County Democrats in Georgia.
Speaker 1: I think this individual just stepped down, said, people are
Speaker 1: poised to pounce on anything, any misstep, any gaff anything
Speaker 1: she Kamala says, and so she's probably not getting the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt. She said. They don't know enough
Speaker 1: about what Kamala's doing, and added quote it doesn't help
Speaker 1: that she's not that adept as a communicator. So these
Speaker 1: are people who you know, are hardcore Democratic partisans, are
Speaker 1: inclined to be in Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's camp,
Speaker 1: you know, believe in the power of like you know,
Speaker 1: representation politics and Kamala Harris being as the potential first
Speaker 1: black woman president. But they have watched how this is
Speaker 1: unfolded for her, and they have not been particularly impressed,
Speaker 1: and they are concerned about whether or not she could
Speaker 1: ultimately win and ultimately handle the job. So the fact
Speaker 1: that you have this much discontent within the Democratic the
Speaker 1: sort of like party establishment of the Democratic Party voicing
Speaker 1: these concerns, and the Washington Post picking it up and
Speaker 1: running with it is a very interesting thing. Yet we
Speaker 1: always pay attention to this why because what matters is
Speaker 1: the internal chatter and what's being leaked, And what's obviously
Speaker 1: being leaked are people close to the White House who
Speaker 1: have watched how terrible and unpopular that she has remained
Speaker 1: in the polls all throughout the Biden presidency. She's probably
Speaker 1: been one of the least like vice presidents in modern times.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really think you'd have to go all
Speaker 1: the way back to Dick Cheney. Even then, you know,
Speaker 1: Republicans actually liked Dick Cheney a lot of the base date,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem that Democrats particularly feel all that enthusias.
Speaker 1: I think Dan Quayle is probably the best example. And
Speaker 1: again that's not even not even in my lifetime that
Speaker 1: that happened. That's how far back we'd have to think
Speaker 1: to somebody who is so unpopular and actively a drag
Speaker 1: on the ticket for a sitting president of the United States,
Speaker 1: and just a lack of political skill. That's the problem
Speaker 1: that they face here. But how are they going to
Speaker 1: get out of it? I just think, Look, I think
Speaker 1: this is all Washington talk. At the end of the day.
Speaker 1: How do you ditcher the black woman? You can't do
Speaker 1: anything about it? Yeah, that's right. I think that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: They put themselves in a drop of their own making.
Speaker 1: And the person who told Joe not to pick Kamala
Speaker 1: was actually his wife. Yes, and she's totally right about it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure now he's like, damn, I should have listened
Speaker 1: to her. But I agree with you. I don't see
Speaker 1: how they back down of it. I would not be
Speaker 1: surprised if it was Pete Boodagee and Liz Smith in
Speaker 1: his camp who are planning some of these stories to
Speaker 1: try to drive a wedge that or exposing a wedge
Speaker 1: that really already exists. And I think the way that
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, like these local county chairs and whatever,
Speaker 1: the way they feel about it, and the way a
Speaker 1: lot of the Democratic base feels about both Joe and
Speaker 1: Kamala is a level of personal warm It's not like
Speaker 1: they despise them, but deep concerns about whether they are
Speaker 1: actually up to the task to win again. And remember
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's whole case in twenty twenty, The whole reason
Speaker 1: he is there is because of electability. This is a
Speaker 1: front of top of mind concern for the Democratic base.
Speaker 1: It is the thing they care about seemingly more than
Speaker 1: anything else. And so when you see the fumbling performances
Speaker 1: from Joe, when you see the fumbling performances from with Kamala,
Speaker 1: it really strikes at the core of what their key
Speaker 1: concern is for the future of the Democratic Party. We
Speaker 1: also noted this Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has certainly proven
Speaker 1: herself to be a highly political animal, was asked about
Speaker 1: a Biden candidacy, and she was very very clear that
Speaker 1: she supported Joe Biden for running for another term and
Speaker 1: was behind him for the next time around. But then
Speaker 1: she got asked about whether Kamala Harris should be on
Speaker 1: the ticket as the vice presidential romany again, Let's take
Speaker 1: a li isn't what she had to say, speaking of
Speaker 1: you're having run for presidenthould Joe Biden run again for
Speaker 1: president to be eighty six by the time the second
Speaker 1: term is over. Yes, he should run again. And he
Speaker 1: is running again because he has gotten a tremendous amount done.
Speaker 1: It's been two years. He's had the skinniest possible majority
Speaker 1: in the United States Senate and only a very small
Speaker 1: majority in the House. And look at what we've done.
Speaker 1: If he is that old in a second term, that
Speaker 1: vice presidency becomes even more important. Could Kamala Harris be
Speaker 1: his choice of the second time around? You know, I
Speaker 1: really want to defer to what makes Biden comfortable on
Speaker 1: his team. I've known Kamala for a long time. I
Speaker 1: like Kamala. I knew her back when when she was
Speaker 1: an Attorney General and I was still teaching and we
Speaker 1: worked on the housing crisis together. So we go way back.
Speaker 1: But they need they have to be a team. In
Speaker 1: my senses, they are. I don't mean that by suggesting
Speaker 1: I think there are any problems. I think they are.
Speaker 1: So anyway, she really had just there. She won't really say, well,
Speaker 1: whatever Joe feels comfortable with, I'm not going to really
Speaker 1: say now after the fact, she did kind of come
Speaker 1: in and try to do a clean job. Okay, well
Speaker 1: you're really moment there, Yeah, very revealing. What do you
Speaker 1: think do you think that she's going to do She
Speaker 1: thinks she thinks that she could still do it? Delusional? Yeah,
Speaker 1: she might, did you possibly? She really might? I mean
Speaker 1: just remember, like part of the reason why, going back
Speaker 1: to my twenty twenty Democratic primary trauma, part of the
Speaker 1: reason that she like held out and stab burning the
Speaker 1: back and all of that was because she was like
Speaker 1: imagining that she was going to be the vice presidential pick,
Speaker 1: which was always fanciful, and then she thought maybe she'd
Speaker 1: get like a cabinet pick or whatever, also fanciful, and
Speaker 1: so you know, ends up she was wrong about all
Speaker 1: of those things. And she's still in the center, which
Speaker 1: is a perfectly you know, fine and important place to be.
Speaker 1: But she she has demonstrated that level of delusion before,
Speaker 1: so it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, I mean I just
Speaker 1: looked it up. She's seventy three years old, spring Chicken
Speaker 1: in senate years and democratic politics in normal years, that's
Speaker 1: pretty old. And you know, I was thinking, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe this is her last chance. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: basically the last shot that you had at high or
Speaker 1: elected office. Realistically, if you look at an actual oro
Speaker 1: real table. So maybe this is the right time, even
Speaker 1: though it is what a point zh one percent chance
Speaker 1: or whatever actually happening. I mean, okay, number one, they're
Speaker 1: not ditching Kamala because they can't get around the trap
Speaker 1: that they made it for themselves and the way that
Speaker 1: they've set up. You know, identity politics is central with
Speaker 1: the Democratic base. So that's number one. Number two, even
Speaker 1: if in some crazy scenario Kamala steps aside or whatever happens,
Speaker 1: They're not picking Liz. They're picking Pete. They're picking Pete.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's the one. He's a kiss ass, extraordinary.
Speaker 1: He's positioned himself with the donor class, and I mean
Speaker 1: one thing that we noted like in New Hampshire, he's
Speaker 1: now meeting, actually beating Biden, which is gross for a
Speaker 1: million reasons that Pete is on top. It is also
Speaker 1: a tremendous sign of weakness with Biden. But if they're
Speaker 1: looking at it and they were actually thinking about, Okay,
Speaker 1: who would we pick for vice president, they would look
Speaker 1: at these sort of polls and imagine that, Okay, Pete
Speaker 1: would bring something to the ticket here. Ultimately, I remember
Speaker 1: Joe said before, basically he wanted to build a bridge
Speaker 1: to the Pete bootagegees of the world. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think Elizabeth Warren, if that is the delusion she's harboring under,
Speaker 1: it is quite astonishing on a number of levels and
Speaker 1: fanciful on a number of levels. Good luck. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: we also have some news from the Republican side that
Speaker 1: we can bring you this morning. It looks like Rondasantis
Speaker 1: is increasingly positioning himself to take a crack at the
Speaker 1: White House this time around. Go ahead, and we had
Speaker 1: reports from Politico and the Washington Post about the team
Speaker 1: that he is assembling. Here in Politico, they've got meet
Speaker 1: rond Deasantis's inner circle and they just kind of go
Speaker 1: down through the list of who the top advisors are
Speaker 1: and who is being lined up for what position moving forward.
Speaker 1: I don't really know any of these people, Sage. I
Speaker 1: don't know if anybody stuck out to you in particular
Speaker 1: as being a particular I mean some of the names,
Speaker 1: like we don't have like the biggest heavy hitters, but
Speaker 1: you have people who have been kind of around the
Speaker 1: scene for a long time. Phil Cox is the only
Speaker 1: one I have any like direct relationship with from the past,
Speaker 1: got to seasoned kind of a communications guy. He's a
Speaker 1: campaign general consultant of the Rummer executive they say, of
Speaker 1: the Republican Governor's Association. So that's like a high level.
Speaker 1: From what I hear, the most influential person in the
Speaker 1: DeSantis world is Casey DeSantis is his wife. Almost everything
Speaker 1: that I've heard is that she is the one driving
Speaker 1: his presidential ambitions to the assent that there are any
Speaker 1: that are involved, and kind of very tightly managing his image.
Speaker 1: She featured prominently in a lot of his ads. By
Speaker 1: all accounts, they have a very very close relationship, and
Speaker 1: they're very like they're kind of a unit. The way
Speaker 1: that they think of themselves. They aren't very trustworthy, don't
Speaker 1: let a lot of people in. That is actually kind
Speaker 1: of a problem. Just because I've said this before. We
Speaker 1: doesn't have really a lot of people that are around
Speaker 1: him in the same way. The biggest name that actually
Speaker 1: jumped out to me was Miriam Adelson, because that is
Speaker 1: an endless pile of money. Miriam Aidelson, for those who
Speaker 1: don't know, is Shade Sheldon Adelson's wife. He since died.
Speaker 1: That he was the casino magnate. I think he was
Speaker 1: like the Las Vegas Sans chairman. I think he's worth
Speaker 1: like forty something billion dollars. She is incredibly active in
Speaker 1: Republican politics and has been for a long time. Her
Speaker 1: own personal views almost perfectly align with Ron DeSantis. So
Speaker 1: to see that on there as a connection as somebody
Speaker 1: outwardly floating herself, and she was kind of pro Trump,
Speaker 1: or at least Adelson was had a long relationship with
Speaker 1: Trump because of the casino world. For her to go
Speaker 1: with DeSantis this early on, that was actually the biggest
Speaker 1: deal for me because they need a lot of money,
Speaker 1: and if you want to do that, he's got Miriam
Speaker 1: Adelson and Ken Griffin. I mean Ken Griffin is worth
Speaker 1: like thirty billion dollars. I just talked about seventy billions
Speaker 1: in wealth that you can tap right there. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: he has like an endless well of deep pocketed I
Speaker 1: mean you only need one really, like a multi multi
Speaker 1: billionaire who's all in for you, and he has at
Speaker 1: least a couple here on hand. So that is noteworthy.
Speaker 1: Let me go ahead and put the Washhip post piece
Speaker 1: up on the screen. Similar reporting, they say advisors to
Speaker 1: Florida governor on DeSantis actively preparing for a possible presidential run.
Speaker 1: They're exploring staff options. Phil Cox, who you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: and Genera Peck involved in ongoing talks about twenty four
Speaker 1: expected by some to play a role in the run.
Speaker 1: Potential early state hires also identified, and so, like I said,
Speaker 1: Cox was a former executive director of the RGA, So
Speaker 1: that's a relatively well known person. And Genera was a
Speaker 1: key member also of DeSantis's twenty twenty two reelect team.
Speaker 1: They both were ultimately so those are people he like,
Speaker 1: you know, brought on, they were involved in the re
Speaker 1: elect and now probably going to help run a presidential campaign.
Speaker 1: One last piece that I saw here just this morning
Speaker 1: is it's about FEC report time. So you know, candidates
Speaker 1: and potentially they have to file these financial disclosure reports
Speaker 1: showing how much money they've raised, what they spent on,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. And so it's the end of
Speaker 1: January and Trump is going to have to file one,
Speaker 1: and apparently the fundraising numbers are going to be pretty weak.
Speaker 1: So we talked yesterday about how Trump was doing these
Speaker 1: lower key events in New Hampshire, low key event in
Speaker 1: South Carolina. And this they were portraying as an intentional
Speaker 1: strategy of like, oh, we're harboring our resources and we're
Speaker 1: doing things a little different this time. In reality, it
Speaker 1: may be a bit of a sign of financial weakness
Speaker 1: that they just don't really have the funds. Not that
Speaker 1: they couldn't stage the rallies and don't have the money
Speaker 1: to do it, but that it would be a more
Speaker 1: significant strain on their resources, and that's the real reason
Speaker 1: why they're opting for these lower key events. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously money is not going to be the
Speaker 1: same as twenty twenty. Just the level of support just
Speaker 1: doesn't exist is whenever you're the sitting president. At the
Speaker 1: same time, though, I do have to wonder, I mean,
Speaker 1: what happened all that stopped the steal money, right, I
Speaker 1: mean last time I checked want, I mean some two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million dollars. Actually, in a way, he
Speaker 1: did himself a disservice because he actively declared for president,
Speaker 1: which means he can no longer tap that super pac
Speaker 1: money from Save America that they have sitting in a
Speaker 1: bank account waiting for the twenty four general election. Now
Speaker 1: he can only fund either himself, which you know that
Speaker 1: never happens. Donald Trump making use some of the NFT
Speaker 1: money that he made to fund the golf money from
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and went on to live golf money. He's
Speaker 1: he's transferred on over there, or you have to go
Speaker 1: and you have to do smaller campaign events. I actually
Speaker 1: think though, that Trump is at his best whenever he's
Speaker 1: in the small contingent, flying by the seat of his pants.
Speaker 1: The more consultants and RNC types that all get involved,
Speaker 1: the worst off that he is. I mean, the twenty
Speaker 1: sixteen campaign was a bunch of clowns. Trust me, I
Speaker 1: literally know these people. They are some of the least
Speaker 1: sophisticated political operators ever. That said, that's what he needs.
Speaker 1: He needs somebody who really doesn't restraint him. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think Hillary outspent him like ten to one. So
Speaker 1: it's not like money even matters all that much. He
Speaker 1: had more money than God in the twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1: He still got beat. By some accounts. He outraised Biden
Speaker 1: in the early days of the campaign. So a lot
Speaker 1: of this I just take with a grain of salt
Speaker 1: of doesn't matter at all. More. It's more like the
Speaker 1: message of the candidate. He's going to get a ton
Speaker 1: of earned media no matter what. And honestly, what's what's
Speaker 1: he most comfortable in? I think this is his like
Speaker 1: natural habitat Yeah. I've always thought he looks more comfortable
Speaker 1: on Trump Force one than he does in Air Force one. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for him to be back on his plane, the
Speaker 1: familiar band back together, it makes sense. We'll see. I
Speaker 1: mean the question mark is whether in the interim listen
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, twenty fifteen, that was a long time ago.
Speaker 1: At this so long and this man has been in
Speaker 1: a presidential bubble of his own making for quite a
Speaker 1: long time and seems to have lost a bit of
Speaker 1: his touch that he had back then. So is he
Speaker 1: able to get that feel back? There have been a
Speaker 1: couple signs of it, you know, his coming out really
Speaker 1: hard on you will not touch social Security, Medicare and
Speaker 1: the stat ceiling thing. That was one sign of it.
Speaker 1: I would say his positioning himself in terms of the
Speaker 1: Russia Ukraine war is another sign of it. Abortion absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean even before the midterm results came out, because
Speaker 1: that you know that you could rationalize is like, okay,
Speaker 1: he's trying to cover his own ass. And just pit
Speaker 1: it on like it was abortion that was the problem
Speaker 1: in the midterms, not me. But the reporting is immediately
Speaker 1: after Roe was overturned, he knew this was a problem
Speaker 1: for Republicans. He knew this was really bad for Republicans.
Speaker 1: So he does have a little bit of that. You
Speaker 1: get glimpses still of that little bit of like normy
Speaker 1: sensibility that is lacking in many other corners of the
Speaker 1: Republican party. So we'll see if he can recapture any
Speaker 1: of that original magic. Yeah, well, I'm semi doubtful, but
Speaker 1: I think that the ingredients are possibly there. Let's go
Speaker 1: to the next one here. This is a really interesting story,
Speaker 1: and this is one that I think highlights something that
Speaker 1: a lot of you have shown quite a bit of
Speaker 1: interest in big pharma and how they make a ton
Speaker 1: of money with the US government's help with lawyers and
Speaker 1: with regulations. So this is probably the best example so
Speaker 1: far from a big investigation. Let's go and put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. Quote how a drug company
Speaker 1: made one hundred and fourteen billion by gaming the US
Speaker 1: patent system. They specifically for years delayed competition for its
Speaker 1: blockbuster drug at the expense of patients and of taxpayer
Speaker 1: with the monopoly that is about to end. So this
Speaker 1: goes back to it drug that some of you might
Speaker 1: have even taken before. It's called Humeira. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: it was poised to become a lot less valuable because
Speaker 1: the key patent on this anti inflammatory medication, which is
Speaker 1: used to treat stuff like arthritis, was expiring at the
Speaker 1: end of the year. Regulators had actually blessed already a
Speaker 1: rival version of the drug, and more copycats were already
Speaker 1: willing to come as the patent was about to expire.
Speaker 1: This was going to push down the medication. And I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding here. It's actual sticker price fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: per year. So how did Humeira and the manufacturer actually
Speaker 1: do this. Well, they block the competitors from entering the
Speaker 1: market and actually, over the next six years continued to
Speaker 1: continue the price rise, and today this drug is the
Speaker 1: most lucrative in the history of the entire pharmaceutical industry.
Speaker 1: So what they did is they use their monopoly power
Speaker 1: to orchestrate a delay by building all this intellectual property
Speaker 1: protection around its drug and then suing would be competitors
Speaker 1: before them, settling with them to continue delaying their product launches.
Speaker 1: So even though they knew they were going to lose,
Speaker 1: they used IP law, patent law, and legal legal chicanery
Speaker 1: to continue suing them, pushing things into active litigation, delaying
Speaker 1: the release of the drug and then doing it for
Speaker 1: a year and delaying it because every year is printing
Speaker 1: so many billions for the entire company one hundred and
Speaker 1: fourteen billion. Now at this point, the current sticker price
Speaker 1: of the drug is eighty thousand dollars a year, which
Speaker 1: they continued. Remember this, they had fifty It's most lucrative
Speaker 1: drug in history, So they know it's going to end.
Speaker 1: So what do you do Whenever you have a limited
Speaker 1: monopoly and you know they know the time is going
Speaker 1: to expire eventually, you just keep jacking the price that
Speaker 1: drug up significantly. It's now up over sixty percent from
Speaker 1: one of its original and it's actually increased thirty times
Speaker 1: in the life cycle of the entire drug, including just
Speaker 1: eight percent this month. And by doing that, you just
Speaker 1: print ungodly amounts of money. I mean, it really is
Speaker 1: difficult to actually even wrap your head around what one
Speaker 1: hundred and fourteen billion dollars actually is from a single drug.
Speaker 1: And then when you also consider we're talking about anti
Speaker 1: inflammatory and like, look, I don't want to go all
Speaker 1: Instagram health here, but let's just say it was a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot of information. In the United States,
Speaker 1: a lot of people have arthritis, a lot of people
Speaker 1: do not eat well, and a lot of people turn
Speaker 1: to drugs, and doctors in particularly not going to tell
Speaker 1: you a lot about anti inflammatory foods or any of
Speaker 1: the other things that you can do on your own,
Speaker 1: and instead they're going to go ahead and prescribe you
Speaker 1: this drug. Maybe by the time you get the drug,
Speaker 1: it's just too late at that point, or maybe you
Speaker 1: just can genitally have arthritis, you know, any one of
Speaker 1: these other conditions, so you actually need it in order
Speaker 1: to live a functioning life. In the meantime, these people
Speaker 1: earned insane amounts of money, and you have to think
Speaker 1: too about the consumers. Even if you have and I
Speaker 1: want people to understand this too. Everybody's like, oh, insurance,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody likes their doctor, and whenever you go
Speaker 1: to the pharmacists, you're like, thank God, I have insurance.
Speaker 1: But you should think a couple of times around that,
Speaker 1: because the insurance companies negotiate these pre rebates with the
Speaker 1: actual pharmacies where they pay x amount per drug, even
Speaker 1: if the production costs of that drug if you bought
Speaker 1: it out of pocket, might be two hundred three hundred
Speaker 1: percent less. So you think you're getting a deal, but
Speaker 1: you're actually getting screwed. And the reason why you're getting
Speaker 1: screwed is you have a preset amount that you can
Speaker 1: actually spend on drugs per year. This is actually very
Speaker 1: common in elderly plans. So you'll have let's say you're
Speaker 1: an elderly person, you're sixty five years old, and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I got this drug and it covers
Speaker 1: up to ten thousand dollars per year, and I only
Speaker 1: to pay two thousand out of my pocket. You don't
Speaker 1: know that you're actually paying way more than if you
Speaker 1: didn't even have insurance. You have no idea. The pharmacies
Speaker 1: is not even allowed to tell you about this. A
Speaker 1: lot of these are secret on competitive agreements that are
Speaker 1: all negotiated behind the scenes. I have no idea how
Speaker 1: any of this is even legal. But there was a
Speaker 1: real human cost to this, which is people had to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of their life savings or social security checks,
Speaker 1: effectively bankrolling the manufacturer of this drug one hundred and
Speaker 1: fourteen billion dollars. Think about how much money. And this
Speaker 1: is a particularly egregious example because you had, for example, Medicare,
Speaker 1: which covered in twenty twenty the cost of this drug
Speaker 1: for forty two thousand patients, spent two point two billion
Speaker 1: dollars more on this drug from twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: so just over three years than it would have if
Speaker 1: competitors had been allowed to offer their versions of this drug.
Speaker 1: So two billion dollars just thrown out the window for
Speaker 1: this drug because of the way they were able to
Speaker 1: manipulate the patent system to their benefit. And so what
Speaker 1: I really want you to understand here is what the
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical shills and lobbyists would say, is, Oh, we need
Speaker 1: these patents because we're gonna you know, this is what
Speaker 1: enables us to invest all this money and life saving research,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. What they really spend their time
Speaker 1: on in terms of drug research, Most of what they
Speaker 1: spend their money on is like new formula relations minor
Speaker 1: changes to their existing suite of highly profitable drugs. That's
Speaker 1: one thing. So like, oh, we'll have it. Instead of
Speaker 1: a twelve hour time release, how about we have a
Speaker 1: thirteen hour time release that enables them, by the way,
Speaker 1: to help them gain the patent system, because the oh,
Speaker 1: this is a new innovation, we can get a new
Speaker 1: patent on this and extend our monopoly on this product.
Speaker 1: So that's one piece, and then the other piece is
Speaker 1: the sort of lawfare that they wage in protecting these
Speaker 1: patent regimes. So one example that they give in this article,
Speaker 1: just to give you a sense, is an early hum
Speaker 1: era patent that expired in twenty sixteen claimed the drug
Speaker 1: could treat a condition known as in I don't know
Speaker 1: how to say this something spindylitis, type of arthritis that
Speaker 1: causes inflammation and that joints, among other diseases. In twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: they applied for another patent for a method of treating
Speaker 1: this same type of arthritis. But the only thing that
Speaker 1: was different about this patent, as they said, specific dosing
Speaker 1: of forty milligrams. And guess what, that patent application was approved,
Speaker 1: and that added eleven years of patent protection beyond twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: just for that one little tweak of Oh, it's not
Speaker 1: just for this particular type of arthritis. It's the forty
Speaker 1: milligram dosage in particular, and that was considered by our
Speaker 1: legal system a sufficient innovation to justify eleven additional years
Speaker 1: of this monopoly that is costing patients millions of dollars
Speaker 1: and costing the federal government billions of dollars on this
Speaker 1: one drug. The other thing I want to highlight here
Speaker 1: is they talk about the real world human beings who
Speaker 1: are impacted by this, and it's terrible. You have people
Speaker 1: who know they one of the things this treats is
Speaker 1: painful skin condition psoriasis. There is, you know, no other
Speaker 1: drug that does what this one does to deal with
Speaker 1: what is an incredibly uncomfortable and painful condition. And so
Speaker 1: you've got people who are delaying retirement because they have
Speaker 1: to their their health insurance to be able to afford
Speaker 1: this critical drug for themselves. You have one example where
Speaker 1: a woman was employed. Her employer. What they did, rather
Speaker 1: than author and health insurance, they actually paid all the
Speaker 1: medical costs on a pocket and it was costing them
Speaker 1: seventy thousand dollars a year for her prescription, which was
Speaker 1: actually more than her entire salary. So the HR Department
Speaker 1: actually called her up and was like, hey, would you
Speaker 1: be open to flying to the Bahmas to get this
Speaker 1: drug from a place that has it much much, much,
Speaker 1: much cheaper. And so that's what they ultimately ended up
Speaker 1: having to do. Because of our system, the amount we
Speaker 1: pay for prescription drugs completely insane. I actually have a
Speaker 1: little bit of this in my monologue today. You have
Speaker 1: people who, you know, they they were tired, who didn't
Speaker 1: realize the way that costs were going to skyrocket for
Speaker 1: them with this essential prescription and they just can't afford
Speaker 1: and they're just having to go without. So there are
Speaker 1: massive human costs for this. And the lies that were
Speaker 1: told about how these big pharma companies are just like
Speaker 1: looking out for us and investing in life saving research,
Speaker 1: it's bullshit. They're spending most of their time and money
Speaker 1: and research and efforts trying to find ways to keep
Speaker 1: their monopolies and gouge the American consumer. It makes me
Speaker 1: sick thinking about some eighty year old lady who's not
Speaker 1: able to afford this drugs and literally getting breakouts of
Speaker 1: sores all over our face, you know, I mean, she's
Speaker 1: eighty years old, and or even one of the revelations
Speaker 1: here you know you were touching on, is it actually
Speaker 1: costs more for Medicare patients, So that means that the
Speaker 1: government is directly benefiting and subsidizing quite a bit of this.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most corrupt schemes in history. And
Speaker 1: I don't even know how to describe how evil all
Speaker 1: of it is. Let's put this up there on the
Speaker 1: screen just to make sure that we link it to
Speaker 1: something even bigger. Big pharmer groups right now are actually
Speaker 1: rejoining a battle with governments on drug prices, and I
Speaker 1: love the subhead here. Tight budgets and US reforms are
Speaker 1: ending after a truce between industry and health authorities. Now
Speaker 1: what exactly was that truce. The truce was during COVID
Speaker 1: there was obvious massive subsidization by the US government and
Speaker 1: by many governments around the world around COVID drugs, around
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical research, around directly profiting not only to vaccines, but
Speaker 1: you got to think about therapeutics and many of the
Speaker 1: other extraordinary measures that the government went to to make
Speaker 1: sure that these companies had everything they need to help
Speaker 1: fight COVID. Well, now that all of that is ending,
Speaker 1: the pharmat industry is basically going and playing hardball with
Speaker 1: all of these governments which are rightfully pulling back on
Speaker 1: their spending and on their subsidies, and they're like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, we want to keep those subsidies going. We
Speaker 1: want to make sure that you're going to be spending
Speaker 1: as much as you can. They point to a couple
Speaker 1: of examples, the same company pulling out of a major
Speaker 1: strict price regime in Europe after the National Health Service
Speaker 1: in the UK actually made the industry drawback some of
Speaker 1: its cost by over three billion dollars. So it's a
Speaker 1: major hardball situation in terms of which companies we are
Speaker 1: willing to work with some of these regimes. And it's
Speaker 1: not just here, it's literally all over the world. And
Speaker 1: you should remember here we spent more on branded prescription
Speaker 1: drugs than any other on Earth, some cases spending more
Speaker 1: on the same drug in this country than in others,
Speaker 1: simply because they have straight up price controls over there.
Speaker 1: But it goes to the fact that these mandatory discounts
Speaker 1: and all these things were taken away by many governments,
Speaker 1: and in many cases they were subsidized, and now these
Speaker 1: pharma companies are fighting for their life to get even
Speaker 1: more of their profit after having this quote temporary truth.
Speaker 1: So this goes even deeper than this one drug. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean we pay they have the numbers here. Overall,
Speaker 1: we pay about two point five times the average drug
Speaker 1: price paid by a group of thirty two comparison countries,
Speaker 1: and on name brand drugs, that disparity is even larger.
Speaker 1: We are the pharmaceutical industry's piggybank individual consumers and the
Speaker 1: US government are their piggy bank. They feel free to
Speaker 1: gouge us to insane degrees. And you know, part of
Speaker 1: the problem has always been that matacare is not allowed
Speaker 1: to negotiate with these companies on the prices of drugs.
Speaker 1: So where you have France in the UK and other
Speaker 1: countries that are like, we're not paying more than X,
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to do that. Now they just passed
Speaker 1: legislation that would allow us on a few This is
Speaker 1: like such a limited reform and a handful of drugs
Speaker 1: to be able to negotiate prices, and these drug companies
Speaker 1: are freaking out even about just that incredibly moderate reform
Speaker 1: that we ultimately instituted. So it's a racket. I mean,
Speaker 1: it really is just like a criminal, criminal racket. And
Speaker 1: you guys are their guinea pigs. You guys are there,
Speaker 1: you know, you're their piggy bank. They think that they
Speaker 1: can go and gouge the US consumer and gouge the
Speaker 1: US government endlessly, and that there will never be any pushback.
Speaker 1: Why because they've bought off so many of our politicians,
Speaker 1: people like hersin Cinema, who have been like consistently making
Speaker 1: sure that any sort of reforms in this direction are
Speaker 1: completely limited. Yep, very true. All right, let's go to
Speaker 1: the next one here, speaking of rackets use cars. I
Speaker 1: can't be the only guy who was in the used
Speaker 1: car market over the last two years, and I was like,
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on in here? So some
Speaker 1: of that is coming to an end. And actually, while
Speaker 1: that is some good news if you are a consumer,
Speaker 1: it may not be the best of news for the
Speaker 1: overall car market in the United States. Let's put this
Speaker 1: up there on the screen. This guy, by the way,
Speaker 1: his name is car Dealership Guy on Twitter is an
Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating follow with a lot of insight into the industry.
Speaker 1: So he says, quote, I spoke with the smart CEO
Speaker 1: of a major dealer group today. He believes that used
Speaker 1: car prices have bottomed and it's possibly only up from here.
Speaker 1: He talks about how less used car supply is in
Speaker 1: the market. Dealers are actually holding leaner inventories due to
Speaker 1: higher holding costs their days supply. The average number of
Speaker 1: days it takes to sell a used car has significantly
Speaker 1: dropped dropped over the last couple of months. And less
Speaker 1: supply generally does going to equal higher prices too. Is
Speaker 1: that actually new cars and this is part of the problem.
Speaker 1: Even if the used car price does drop, it was
Speaker 1: so high and new cars being unaccessible are at record highs.
Speaker 1: So right now, even at the current price levels, used
Speaker 1: cars are still generally cheaper than a new car. It
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a flip during the pandemic, however,
Speaker 1: returning somewhat to normal and then finally there is possibil
Speaker 1: and I this is one thing I do hope for
Speaker 1: some pent up demand entering the market, because used car
Speaker 1: prices have finished twenty twenty two down about fifteen percent
Speaker 1: year over a year, so overall, as a consumer it
Speaker 1: might be a good time to buy a car, although
Speaker 1: you never do really know what's going to go on
Speaker 1: with that. But on a bigger and a broader level
Speaker 1: is actually these used car companies, of which I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be honest, it took full advantage of somebody. One of
Speaker 1: my cars was involved in an accident and the mechanic
Speaker 1: was like, hey man, I'm just gonna tell you this
Speaker 1: as a friend. He's like, you should sell this car
Speaker 1: right now. He's like, this car is not gonna last
Speaker 1: for a while after such a catastrophic accident that it
Speaker 1: was involved in. And he's like, these idiot you know,
Speaker 1: Carvana Vroom companies. He's like, they'll buy anything, and he's like,
Speaker 1: they'll just write you a check. And he was right.
Speaker 1: So maybe it turns out that wasn't such a sustainable
Speaker 1: business model. Let's he turn out this screen. The pandemic
Speaker 1: car sellers, the pandemic use car boom is coming to
Speaker 1: an abrupt end. And they talk about how dealership seeing
Speaker 1: sales and prices drop as consumers are tightening their belts,
Speaker 1: and that especially companies like Carvana, which were printing money
Speaker 1: to a historic degree over the last two years, maybe
Speaker 1: completely screwed. We're talking again about used car prices. They
Speaker 1: are falling fourteen percent on the year, but actually declining
Speaker 1: even more and more as the months go on, and
Speaker 1: all of that is significantly hurting their bottom line. Carvana
Speaker 1: reported a quarterly loss of more than five hundred million
Speaker 1: dollars and had to lay off four thousand employees. In
Speaker 1: the last twelve months. They have piled up significant amounts
Speaker 1: of debt. Its stock price has fallen ninety five percent
Speaker 1: in the last twelve months. At this point, I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe I should buy it. Whenever you look at that,
Speaker 1: they maybe not financial advice, by the way, they maybe
Speaker 1: headed for bankruptcy a very much. Honestly, three states have
Speaker 1: actually suspended the Carvana operating license from consumer complaints. And
Speaker 1: what they're saying is, quote, we think there's a decent
Speaker 1: chance the company will just end up having to file
Speaker 1: for straight up bankruptcy. They have too much debt for
Speaker 1: the level of sales and profitability, can't support that debt load,
Speaker 1: and will likely need to restructure. Carvana to be clear,
Speaker 1: says that they have sufficient funds to turn its business around.
Speaker 1: I've heard that one before pretty recently, actually, so who knows.
Speaker 1: This entire experiment in the used car world, it seemed
Speaker 1: like everything was changing. You could buy and sell a
Speaker 1: car online. It's not looking so good. Right now, Chris,
Speaker 1: And this is one of those things that people get
Speaker 1: caught up in the hype of the idea. It's got
Speaker 1: a feel of like a sexy idea that Slim has
Speaker 1: come and they built these gigantic car vending machines that like,
Speaker 1: you know that your car would be delivered to and
Speaker 1: then you can go and pick up. I mean, they
Speaker 1: look super cool. That's what the image for those of
Speaker 1: you who could see on the screen was one of
Speaker 1: these big car vending machine towers. Unfortunately it's completely empty,
Speaker 1: in a sign of the times and the troubles for Carvana.
Speaker 1: There's kind of a deeper story here, though. Let me
Speaker 1: read you this piece because I think it reveals it
Speaker 1: connects to the tech recession stuff and some of the
Speaker 1: other things that we've been covering. They talk about how
Speaker 1: when the pandemic forced car buyers a shop online, Carvana
Speaker 1: became a Wall Street Darling. Its stock swored reached a
Speaker 1: high of about three hundred and forty five dollars a
Speaker 1: share back in twenty twenty one, but that hoopla obscured
Speaker 1: some operational troubles. The company has never reported profit for
Speaker 1: a full year, never reported profit for a full year.
Speaker 1: In the nearly decade that his shares have traded on
Speaker 1: the stock market, it has spent a lot of money
Speaker 1: to add retail locations, build those fancy towers, refine its
Speaker 1: online platform. In some markets, it has struggled to grow
Speaker 1: amid stiff competition, and it goes on to talk about
Speaker 1: some specific problems that they had in the Denver market.
Speaker 1: But again, when interest rates were basically zero and cash
Speaker 1: was cheap and easy, something like Carvana, which had a
Speaker 1: good story and seemed sexy and seemed like an idea
Speaker 1: that's time time had come, could continue to float its
Speaker 1: operations and can continue to move forward and have these
Speaker 1: insane stock market valuations based on the story. Well, now
Speaker 1: with the Federal Reserve lifting rates, the music has kind
Speaker 1: of stopped. And so now if you don't actually have
Speaker 1: a profitable business model, that is going to be a
Speaker 1: real problem for you. And adding to their troubles is
Speaker 1: the fact that they made a gigantic acquisition at sort
Speaker 1: of like the peak of the market, and that has
Speaker 1: added to a massive debt burden that has made it
Speaker 1: very difficult for them to ultimately overcome. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of a shame because you know, the idea of it
Speaker 1: is really cool. I also hate going to car dealerships.
Speaker 1: A lot of people do. They find the experience very stressful.
Speaker 1: The idea of just being able to like pick and
Speaker 1: choose at home and have the thing delivered to your
Speaker 1: door or at one of these local car vending machines,
Speaker 1: it sounds like a cool idea, but the economics of
Speaker 1: it at this point just have it worked out. They
Speaker 1: just don't have the kinks worked out. That's why they
Speaker 1: got their license pulled in a couple of states because
Speaker 1: people are having so much trouble to getting the titles
Speaker 1: to the cars that they supposedly already purchased. So not
Speaker 1: looking too good for Carbona. It's tough. I wanted Carvona
Speaker 1: to work, I wanted room to work. And look, it's
Speaker 1: because these used car dealers. They're basically legalized mob bosses.
Speaker 1: I don't know if people know this, but you know,
Speaker 1: they did an analysis in twenty nineteen of who the
Speaker 1: richest people in America are. So get this, twenty percent
Speaker 1: of people in twenty nineteen who filed an income tax
Speaker 1: return who made more than one point five to eight
Speaker 1: million dollars. They're used car dealers. These guys are making
Speaker 1: more money than God. And it's like, if you really
Speaker 1: want to be a millionaire in this country, you should
Speaker 1: be a used car dealer or a mechanic and body
Speaker 1: shop owner, because nobody knows what the hell it should cost.
Speaker 1: There's all these hidden ass fees that are in there,
Speaker 1: and if you use just even some basic business sense,
Speaker 1: it looks like you can extract a hell of a
Speaker 1: lot of rent. I went deep on this. I was like,
Speaker 1: how's this possible? Why then are there not used car
Speaker 1: dealers all over the place. There is an insane licensing
Speaker 1: regime that goes from the county, state, and business level
Speaker 1: where you both have to team up with the so
Speaker 1: called dealer itself, right like the brand Honda. You got
Speaker 1: to get permission from your local county, You got to
Speaker 1: deal with some real estate guys in terms of zoning
Speaker 1: laws and all this. It's incredibly corrupt. So a lot
Speaker 1: of this is actually regulated at the state and the
Speaker 1: county level. And of course, why would any average citizen
Speaker 1: ever know about this, Like, yeah, that's how it works, whatever,
Speaker 1: But actually you're really getting hosts. One of the ways
Speaker 1: I learned about this was from the battles that Tesla
Speaker 1: has in terms of having to open different shops and
Speaker 1: all that. But the more research you do, you're like, wow,
Speaker 1: this entire thing is a racket to a degree where
Speaker 1: I don't even know what an actual car should cost,
Speaker 1: Like if you were able to just buy it straight
Speaker 1: from the distributor, it might be as much as ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars less. It really might. They also they have
Speaker 1: a lot of local political power. I mean, partly because
Speaker 1: they have to be able to navigate this regime and whatever,
Speaker 1: but oftentimes, like your local car dealership owners are very
Speaker 1: politically connected. They're doing local donation, they're state rep their
Speaker 1: state senator, et cetera. So anyway, they're a sort of
Speaker 1: like locally very politically powerful growth. But you know, bigger picture,
Speaker 1: one of the things we've been focused on, obviously, is
Speaker 1: the way that the fedlifting rates has dramatically impacted our economy.
Speaker 1: We focused a lot on the housing market and how
Speaker 1: much just a moderate increase and mortgage interest rates makes
Speaker 1: housing dramatically unaffordable, buying a home impossible for so many people.
Speaker 1: That's why the market is kind of like frozen at
Speaker 1: a standstill right now. And it's a very similar picture
Speaker 1: for car buying. The interest rates on auto loans have
Speaker 1: also gone up significantly, and in fact, there's a piece
Speaker 1: in this article where one of the owners, I think
Speaker 1: it was a car Max, was talking about you know,
Speaker 1: they see that people go on the website, they're looking
Speaker 1: at a car, they pick something out, they go and
Speaker 1: they calculate what that monthly payment is going to be
Speaker 1: given where interest rates are today, and they bail out.
Speaker 1: They say, I can't do it, it's not affordable anymore.
Speaker 1: So having a huge impact on the auto industry, and
Speaker 1: in particular in the used car sales, which of course
Speaker 1: was like red red hot during the Pinnet red hot
Speaker 1: also matters in terms of loans and the way that also,
Speaker 1: you know, cars status symbol of the United States. A
Speaker 1: lot of Americans buy far more cars than they actually need,
Speaker 1: and they buy new cars all the time. I guess
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that we just really love
Speaker 1: to spend a lot of money on, and that's actually
Speaker 1: a big driver of consumer sales and really a lot
Speaker 1: of satisfaction that people find in their lives. So how
Speaker 1: this impacts, how this impacts all of you is actually
Speaker 1: pretty significant, especially you know, used cars is seventy percent
Speaker 1: of the entire market. Yeah, it does make people don't
Speaker 1: realize that. Okay, let's go to CNN couldn't help but
Speaker 1: resist this particular one. Just a hilarious new analysis of
Speaker 1: the data. Let's go ahead and put this up there
Speaker 1: on the screen. CNN just suffered its worst ratings week
Speaker 1: in nine years. So let me just read you these numbers,
Speaker 1: because they're genuinely stunning. Average across all of CNN, according
Speaker 1: to Nielsen, was four hundred and forty four thousand in primetime,
Speaker 1: ninety three thousand in the all important age twenty five
Speaker 1: to fifty four news demographic, four hundred and seventeen thousd
Speaker 1: total viewers, eighty thousand in the demo for the total day.
Speaker 1: By comparison, they're doing so badly that they even look
Speaker 1: like a joke. In relation to the other cable industry,
Speaker 1: which is also doing like a joke. Fox News drew
Speaker 1: a total of just one point four million that would
Speaker 1: have been terrible even five years ago, and only one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy six thousand of them in the key demo.
Speaker 1: MSNBC notching only six hundred and twenty nine thousand total viewers,
Speaker 1: only sixty nine thousand in the key demographic. I mean,
Speaker 1: just imagine this at the peak of Fox, MSNBC, at CNN,
Speaker 1: not a single one of them can crack more than
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand people in the key demographic.
Speaker 1: Imagine a basic YouTube creator out there is getting more
Speaker 1: than two hundred and fifty thousand views in the key demo.
Speaker 1: I think almost one hundred percent of the views on
Speaker 1: this channel and of our podcast downloads from what we
Speaker 1: are able to know, are all in the key demo.
Speaker 1: And you could probably say that about all of new
Speaker 1: media independent media. This is just horrific, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense relative to the amount of money that
Speaker 1: they get paid because it's a fake industry. The entire
Speaker 1: thing propped up by these cable subscriber fees. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine if someone paid us a billion dollars just to exist.
Speaker 1: That's basically what it is. That's how their business model
Speaker 1: has no impact on whether people watch their stuff or not.
Speaker 1: But the funny part to me is that all of
Speaker 1: the new changes that they've made at the network Crystal
Speaker 1: have been a massive failure. The Don Lemon one in particular,
Speaker 1: has actually which was supposed to revamp the Morning. They
Speaker 1: actually dropped from their originally pathetic numbers by several by
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of viewers. In total, it is now
Speaker 1: the one of the worst most dismally rated shows in
Speaker 1: the history of cable television in the Morning. And what
Speaker 1: are they going to do about it? I mean, look,
Speaker 1: at this point, I'm not sure if it's possible. Like
Speaker 1: CNN CEO Chris Licked, he gave an interview yesterday to
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Times. Let's put this up there on
Speaker 1: the screen, and this is one of those views you
Speaker 1: probably should just never say some of these things out loud,
Speaker 1: because he was like, we want to restore trust. And
Speaker 1: the interviewer is like, what does that mean? Why exactly
Speaker 1: do you want to restore trust? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of data to say that trust
Speaker 1: has eroded. And you're like, wow, you're just that explain why.
Speaker 1: He's like, we got to fix it because we can
Speaker 1: see in our data it's a real problem. We can
Speaker 1: see within our data that people don't trust us anymore.
Speaker 1: Of course, his solution to that was hiring Bill Maher
Speaker 1: and putting Don Lemon in the Morning, putting stuff that
Speaker 1: was available on YouTube for free on eleven thirty at night.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting strategy. We'll see if it works out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: putting Don Lemon in a hoodie up on the morning, okay,
Speaker 1: again fascinating also, of course, as you you actually worked
Speaker 1: in this environment, I never have. I'm only observed they're
Speaker 1: already sniping at each other from behind the scenes. Oh
Speaker 1: you re there. You know there's strife at the show
Speaker 1: as it struggles to find its voice. You can tell
Speaker 1: me despise each other. Yeah, I mean, and some of
Speaker 1: that between Caitlin Collins and Don Lemon. The the fact
Speaker 1: that that's spilled out onto the air right tells you
Speaker 1: it is really easily behind the scenes, because I mean,
Speaker 1: they really you know, obviously you're trying to be professional whatever,
Speaker 1: I try to keep that behind the scenes. So the
Speaker 1: fact that's spilling out on air at all tells you
Speaker 1: they like already completely despise each other. And yeah, the
Speaker 1: fact that there are these kinds of leaks coming out
Speaker 1: from the program about its troubles. Apparently the EP that
Speaker 1: was you know, originally on the show has already been reassigned,
Speaker 1: already fired, which already you know, which is a major
Speaker 1: indication that they feel like this is not going well.
Speaker 1: And part of what ellisten, I haven't watched it, so
Speaker 1: I don't want to claim I like really know the
Speaker 1: ins and outs of why it's failing and why the
Speaker 1: mechanics aren't working. But what they're talking about is the
Speaker 1: whole concept is really kind of confused, at least with
Speaker 1: the you know, John Berman and Allison Camerda, like they
Speaker 1: had a decent camaraderie, they were able to bounce off
Speaker 1: each other, and you knew what the show was, right.
Speaker 1: It's a political morning show. It's a news morning show
Speaker 1: with the CNN liberal slant, like that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Now they're sort of trying to bring in these elements
Speaker 1: of like a Today Show kind of thing, but then
Speaker 1: it's also trying to be the you know, CNN news
Speaker 1: politics thing that it was, and the two things just
Speaker 1: do not really mesh together. And so there's concern of like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: you're not winning the morning show watchers from today's show.
Speaker 1: That's a totally different thing, and you're not winning those
Speaker 1: people over, and now you're in danger of losing the audience,
Speaker 1: the small audience that you did have. So and then
Speaker 1: you know, you put together three personalities that clearly don't
Speaker 1: like particularly like each other or vibe, which is incredibly
Speaker 1: important on television. And you know, nobody wants to watch
Speaker 1: three people who like hate each other's guts. No one
Speaker 1: wants to watch that, except for in like a viral
Speaker 1: clip that I'll watch. But as a sustainable like this
Speaker 1: is how I'm gonna start my day, absolutely not, So
Speaker 1: that's a disaster. Their other big change that they are
Speaker 1: making is instead, at least this is the way I
Speaker 1: read it, I don't know. I read this like four
Speaker 1: times to make sure I was understand it correct. Here's
Speaker 1: what they say. The network is going to host a
Speaker 1: standalone weekday nine to twelve block anchored by John Burman,
Speaker 1: Kate Baldwin, and Sarah Sidner. Then they're going to have
Speaker 1: a one to four pm standalone block hosted by Brianna Kaelor,
Speaker 1: Boris Sanchez and Jim Shudeo. So instead of having like
Speaker 1: the individual anchors per hour, they're going to do two
Speaker 1: more giant three hour blocks with these trios of anchors, which, again,
Speaker 1: like you know, if the vibe works out, maybe, I mean,
Speaker 1: but if any of these people have friction or they're
Speaker 1: not able to gel together, it's going to be a
Speaker 1: I don't know, and the whole thing just has the
Speaker 1: it's giving rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Absolutely
Speaker 1: not bringing in anything new, not really doing anything new,
Speaker 1: just like, let me just reconfigure what I've got here
Speaker 1: and sell it like it's some brand new concept and
Speaker 1: we're doing something totally different, when really it's just kind
Speaker 1: of the same old thing in our new, probably worse
Speaker 1: reconstituted form. Their biggest problem is how can you go
Speaker 1: outside the form when anybody with the brain would not
Speaker 1: work within that form. Imagine if they came to it.
Speaker 1: First of all, it would never happen. But like if
Speaker 1: they came to it, whoa we should come? You're like,
Speaker 1: so we should shorten our show, give up our business,
Speaker 1: give up our independence all to come and work for
Speaker 1: you so that we can speak in between advertising breaks,
Speaker 1: all while having a corporate sensor over your mouth the
Speaker 1: entire Why would we ever do that? Of course? You
Speaker 1: know they say money, but like, look, some of us
Speaker 1: value things much more than money. It's called independence and
Speaker 1: be able to say what you actually think. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people like that that are all in
Speaker 1: this business. None of whom would even conform to what
Speaker 1: CNN would want. And then number two, anybody that would
Speaker 1: probably be willing to go work there, Well, that's not
Speaker 1: really somebody who's going to be able to even really
Speaker 1: be able to bring an audience in the first place. Sure,
Speaker 1: the mar thing is not a bad strategy. I mean,
Speaker 1: since he has a big a fan base that does
Speaker 1: watch him on HBO and you have some of that.
Speaker 1: But I just keep coming back to if you really
Speaker 1: want to watch, just go on YouTube, Like why you
Speaker 1: tune in live? That impetus. I just think that's gone.
Speaker 1: I think it's dead outside of breaking news, prestige television
Speaker 1: like The Last of Us, which I'm currently obsessed with
Speaker 1: dying right now from the last episode. People who know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, Well, there's that, there's sports, which
Speaker 1: people like to watch live, and then there's if there's
Speaker 1: some major breaking news event. I mean, that's still where
Speaker 1: CNN and ANTEC and Fox News, but CNN in particular,
Speaker 1: that's where they really still have a value add because
Speaker 1: they do have this gigantic global footprint and if you're
Speaker 1: just in the situation where the facts are coming, you're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Speaker 1: You know, that's still where they are kind of like
Speaker 1: at their best. But you can't think there are going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of weeks where you don't have
Speaker 1: that gigantic breaking news tent pole type of event. And
Speaker 1: I think your initial point is the most important one
Speaker 1: and one that frankly all of these cable news operators
Speaker 1: are aware of, which is that their business model is
Speaker 1: a zombie shop. It does not make sense, Like if
Speaker 1: you were going to invent this thing today, it would
Speaker 1: never work because people would be like, I'm not paying
Speaker 1: these premium ad dollar rates for your show that nobody
Speaker 1: watches and which has like a trash reputation. I'm not paying,
Speaker 1: you know, to add you to my cable bundle, like
Speaker 1: charging my cable subscribers more to add you to my
Speaker 1: cable bundle when people aren't even really watching it. I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not paying you what they're getting paid right now.
Speaker 1: And so that's why you see all this cost cutting
Speaker 1: across the industry. I mean, in particular at m A,
Speaker 1: SMBC and CNN Fox because they have a larger audience,
Speaker 1: they have a little bit of a larger, longer timeframe.
Speaker 1: But the writing is on the wall for them as well.
Speaker 1: You know, they're they're trying to hold on as best
Speaker 1: they can to what they have to pare down their
Speaker 1: expenses and be able to make it work. And you know,
Speaker 1: you can see it in this sort of like rearranging
Speaker 1: the deck chairs approach that Chris Lick is taking. Because
Speaker 1: you can't pay to bring in gigantic new talent, that's
Speaker 1: not going to work out. They cut the you know,
Speaker 1: original series that CNN was paying a lot of money
Speaker 1: for those, and frankly they were successful. Yeah, we're good.
Speaker 1: Even that they know they're cutting all of that out,
Speaker 1: he's saying, Oh, we're going to do it in house,
Speaker 1: and it's just going to be just as good. I'm
Speaker 1: highly doubtful of that. So anyway, that's the situation that
Speaker 1: they're in. We'll see where it all ends. Good luck,
Speaker 1: all right, Sacher, we are you looking at well. One
Speaker 1: of the most consequential foreign policy minds in American history
Speaker 1: is probably someone you've never heard of unless you were
Speaker 1: an international relations major. George Kennon. He was a diplomat
Speaker 1: for the United States and towards Russia, expert who after
Speaker 1: World War II, became the father of containment strategy towards
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, containment was a winning
Speaker 1: argument at the time in a debate about how to
Speaker 1: handle the Soviet Union. On the one hand, you had
Speaker 1: Mccarthurits and others who advocated a policy of rollback, which
Speaker 1: effectively meant confronting the Soviet Union where they were and
Speaker 1: trying to push their domination of the Eastern bloc of
Speaker 1: Europe back to the core territory of Russia. Kennan's containment
Speaker 1: strategy recognized the danger of Soviet expansionism, but struck a
Speaker 1: more defense of tone that the policy of the United
Speaker 1: States should be quote that of a long term, patient,
Speaker 1: but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. Kennen
Speaker 1: argued that containing the Soviet Union from further expansion avoided
Speaker 1: the risk of direct confrontation, and that, if pursued, would
Speaker 1: eventually cause it to break up. He was right, of course,
Speaker 1: at the time, in a debate that could have easily
Speaker 1: led us to nuclear confrontation, and his analysis was built
Speaker 1: upon years of dealing with the Russians both before and
Speaker 1: after and during World War Two. Having suffered through the
Speaker 1: trauma of watching millions of people die. Usually, though the
Speaker 1: hagiography of Kennen in official circles it ends right there.
Speaker 1: People who see him rightfully as one of the most
Speaker 1: important architects of the post World War two international order
Speaker 1: and the father of containment liked to disregard much of
Speaker 1: his realist tendencies, which governed his thoughts throughout his life,
Speaker 1: and especially in his thoughts of how the United States
Speaker 1: should approach Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: Those of you who have been watching for a while
Speaker 1: will remember Kennon's warnings about NATO expansionism in nineteen nine,
Speaker 1: when he wrote, quote, such a decision may be expected
Speaker 1: to inflame the nationalistic, anti western militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion,
Speaker 1: to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy,
Speaker 1: to restore the atmosphere of the Cold War to East
Speaker 1: West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy and directions
Speaker 1: decidedly not to our liking. Furthermore, a new biography of
Speaker 1: Kenan actually tells us even more. Kennen wrote in a
Speaker 1: private letter after the admission of the former Saviet Soviet
Speaker 1: States in to NATO the quote nowhere does this choice
Speaker 1: appear more portentious and pregnant with fateful consequences than in
Speaker 1: the case of Ukraine. Kennan actually thought a lot about Ukraine.
Speaker 1: He warned in a series of memos throughout the Cold
Speaker 1: War that if Ukraine were to get its independence from Russia, quote,
Speaker 1: Washington should not interfere, at least initially, because quote an
Speaker 1: independent Ukraine would be challenged eventually from the Russian side.
Speaker 1: Perhaps an end to this nightmare in Ukraine can be
Speaker 1: found in his pressience. He actually wrote that for any
Speaker 1: potential balance of power to work in Ukraine, that the
Speaker 1: United States should quote push for a composing of the
Speaker 1: differences along the lines of a reasonable federalism. He especially
Speaker 1: thought it was important for the US to understand the
Speaker 1: population of Greater Russians living throughout the Soviet Bloc, and
Speaker 1: anticipated that should break up occur, it was important to
Speaker 1: have a genuinely representative coalition in the region. Really, what
Speaker 1: strikes me in reading Kennon's words almost seventy five years
Speaker 1: ago is just how much remains exactly the same now.
Speaker 1: To be sure, look, he got a lot wrong. He
Speaker 1: was wrong about how quickly it would take for Ukrainian
Speaker 1: national identity to form and the ferocity of its defense
Speaker 1: went under attack. But underlying his analysis was a weary
Speaker 1: man who went to Moscow in nineteen thirty three. He
Speaker 1: lived through the Stalin Purges, he saw rivers of blood
Speaker 1: flow through World War II, and he was animated through
Speaker 1: his entire life of an intense desire to the end
Speaker 1: of his days to never see that happen again. In fact,
Speaker 1: at the end of the Cold War, when he really
Speaker 1: got a lot of a claim for how containment would
Speaker 1: end the Soviet Union, he actually wrote that he thought
Speaker 1: the entire thing was avoidable in the first place. He
Speaker 1: pointed to a letter in his biographer when it was alive,
Speaker 1: to a note from Joseph Stalin in nineteen fifty two
Speaker 1: which invited the then president of the United States to
Speaker 1: hold talks over the shape of post World War II Europe.
Speaker 1: It could have been another Potsdam conference, but the offer
Speaker 1: was rebuffed internally. In Kennon's view, that was a mistake.
Speaker 1: Why because he thought the United States could have avoided
Speaker 1: a lot of heartache and nuclear missile stick cares if
Speaker 1: it engaged in quote negotiation, especially a real negotiation. At
Speaker 1: the time, Kennon's biographer Frank Costeliaga writes of the takeaway quote,
Speaker 1: Kennon's lesson for us in understanding the Cold War of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century and in diffusing the explosive tensions of
Speaker 1: the twenty first century is that seemingly intractable conflicts may
Speaker 1: be more susceptible to settlement than it may at first appear.
Speaker 1: Now we should take no man as gospel, but a
Speaker 1: more fulsome view of what a great man, throughout his
Speaker 1: great thinking about our great issues of our time. It's
Speaker 1: something we should just all consider, we should listen to.
Speaker 1: In my estimation, the debate around Ukraine today is shrouded
Speaker 1: in a toxic discourse where if you question for a
Speaker 1: moment American interest over Ukraine and interest, you're somehow branded
Speaker 1: as a putent puppet. What Kennon always understood and wrote
Speaker 1: from was a reality. Russia exists, it will remain the
Speaker 1: colossus in the region, likely for centuries, even though it
Speaker 1: is economically and socially backward. That is and has always
Speaker 1: been the case in Russia. But it doesn't erase geopolitical
Speaker 1: realities of power. Fundamentally, the debate goes to a very
Speaker 1: deep level. Should we engage with the world as it is,
Speaker 1: or ignore risk to pursue what we want. A lot
Speaker 1: of people throughout history pursue the latter strategy when they
Speaker 1: forget the reminders of what that risk actually looks like.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, we would all be better off if
Speaker 1: we just thought about the man for a little bit,
Speaker 1: just like the people who eventually defeated the Soviet Union did.
Speaker 1: They found his advice very valuable, And I thought the
Speaker 1: new biography is fantastic and a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: I was reading about it And if you want to
Speaker 1: hear my reaction to Sagre's monologue, become a premium subscriber
Speaker 1: today at Breakingpoints dot com. Crystal, what are you taking
Speaker 1: to look at? Well, guys, the latest Mister Beast video
Speaker 1: dropped and it's kind of beautiful and it's also honestly
Speaker 1: kind of brutal. And the video you watch as Mister
Speaker 1: Beasts his real name is Jimmy, pays for one thousand
Speaker 1: people to undergo a simple surgery to cure them a blindness.
Speaker 1: As you watch, you see a father able to clearly
Speaker 1: view his son's face for the first time in years.
Speaker 1: You see a young man who's able to drive for
Speaker 1: the first time in his life. You see providers able
Speaker 1: to go back to work, you see a mother in
Speaker 1: tears at having her life instantly transformed by a generous stranger.
Speaker 1: And because it's mister Beast, he also randomly through in
Speaker 1: a few ten thousand dollars giveaways, even a fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars giveaway on top of all of it, so you
Speaker 1: get to watch the unadulterated joy of people having crushing
Speaker 1: financial stress lifted off their shoulders in an instant. Now,
Speaker 1: for those of you who aren't familiar with mister Beast,
Speaker 1: he's got one hundred and thirty million subscribers on YouTube.
Speaker 1: He is the number one YouTuber in the entire world,
Speaker 1: and this type of random act of charity is kind
Speaker 1: of par for the course for his content. He's famous
Speaker 1: in part for those random cash giveaways. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: mister Beast. But this late, this video has actually led
Speaker 1: to some backlash. You're probably thinking, what the hell the
Speaker 1: man cured blindness for a thousand people who, without him
Speaker 1: would still be suffering from visual impairment. How in God's
Speaker 1: name can that possibly be controversial? Well, here with some
Speaker 1: of the online discourse curtsy of distractify to give you
Speaker 1: a little bit of flavor of what people were saying. Quote,
Speaker 1: if mister Beast truly wanted to do something good and
Speaker 1: truly cares about disabled people, he would not monetize their
Speaker 1: suffering and make them tap dance on video just so
Speaker 1: he can slap it up on YouTube. I'm tired of
Speaker 1: having to perform gratitude for wealthy people just to stay alive.
Speaker 1: Others went even further. This person tweeted, there is something
Speaker 1: so demonic about this and I can't even articulate what
Speaker 1: it is, and they've got screenshots from the video. Sticking
Speaker 1: with the satanic theme here, this individual really went all in,
Speaker 1: tweeting he is literally the anti Christ. He's performing our
Speaker 1: society's equivalent of miracles through these excessive acts of faux
Speaker 1: generosity and is garnering everyone's undivided love and admiration, and
Speaker 1: doing so, he will start subverting christ teachings next and
Speaker 1: preaching selfish action. Mister Beast apparently literally causing that in
Speaker 1: times or something. Now, all of this is clearly pretty unhinged,
Speaker 1: not because their rage is unjustified, but because it is
Speaker 1: wildly misplaced. Mister Beasts did not create a situation where
Speaker 1: one hundred million people around the world have curable blindness
Speaker 1: which could be fixed with this simple ten minute surgery.
Speaker 1: In America, Mister Beasts did not architect the disgusting for
Speaker 1: profit healthcare system that allows people in the richest country
Speaker 1: in the world to go without basic health care, but
Speaker 1: the Mister Beasts video it does definitely expose a grotesque
Speaker 1: failing in our system. Here. It reminds me of the
Speaker 1: meme about how all those heartwarming local news stories just
Speaker 1: basically illustrate some truly dystopian element of our society. Like
Speaker 1: here's a few examples heartwarming coworkers donate six days personal
Speaker 1: time off for nurse who can't work while battling leukemia,
Speaker 1: or there's this one. I hope I make it seven
Speaker 1: year old Alabama girls selling lemonade to fund her own
Speaker 1: brain surgery, or getting closer to the Mister Beasts dynamic
Speaker 1: Brighton teacher who went above and beyond for students wins
Speaker 1: a year of rent payments on the Ellen Degenerous Show.
Speaker 1: That is nice of Ellen. I'm glad she did it,
Speaker 1: But why the hell should this or any teacher have
Speaker 1: to rely on the kindness of a TV celebrity to
Speaker 1: be able to afford their damn rent. The bottom line is,
Speaker 1: mister Beast's blindness video should not exist. It shouldn't be necessary.
Speaker 1: And if you feel that way, by the way, mister Beast,
Speaker 1: he kind of agrees with you. He tweeted, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why curable blindness is a thing. Why don't government
Speaker 1: step in and help? Even if you're thinking purely from
Speaker 1: a financial standpoint, it's hard to see how they don't
Speaker 1: ROI return on investment on taxes from people being able
Speaker 1: to work again. And his point is a completely reasonable one.
Speaker 1: If the US government was guided by care and concern
Speaker 1: for its citizens and a pragmatic interest in human capital investment,
Speaker 1: his logic would make perfect sense. Why wouldn't you pay
Speaker 1: for a relatively inexpensive surgery to not just ease suffering,
Speaker 1: but gain tax revenue from a more productive workforce if
Speaker 1: that's the thing you care about. But he's missing, though,
Speaker 1: is that it's not the government's bottom line that matters
Speaker 1: when it comes to the health industry. What governments policy
Speaker 1: are the profit margins of the entire health industrial complex,
Speaker 1: which spends millions to make sure that our disgusting profits
Speaker 1: over people's system stays in place for all eternity. You
Speaker 1: want to talk about return on investment. We spend more
Speaker 1: than any other nation in the world on healthcare, and
Speaker 1: yet we get worse results than any other developed nation.
Speaker 1: It's disgusting. It should be criminal. All these pigs in
Speaker 1: the healthcare industry want to feed at the trough, so
Speaker 1: they will fight with everything they have to block the
Speaker 1: obvious solution, which is universal healthcare. It's okay to feel
Speaker 1: happy for the lucky one thousand who can now see
Speaker 1: clearly thanks to the generosity and the business model of
Speaker 1: a YouTuber, and it's okay to feel rage. You should
Speaker 1: feel rage at a system that puts profits over people.
Speaker 1: Mister B's most popular video ever. It was actually a
Speaker 1: takeoff on the Smashed Netflix series. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you guys watched the series or his video on it,
Speaker 1: but it was take off on squid Game. In the
Speaker 1: Netflix show, financially desperate people are pitted against each other
Speaker 1: in a series of murderous games for cash, to the
Speaker 1: delight of wealthy elites who were gathered there to watch
Speaker 1: the whole spectacle. The last person alive wins a cash
Speaker 1: prize and a ticket out of the financial stress that
Speaker 1: made their life so miserable, they were willing to risk
Speaker 1: that life for a chance at the cash and the relief. Effectively,
Speaker 1: their poverty was so endlessly devastating they'd rather die than
Speaker 1: continue to live under its crushing weight. Save your rage
Speaker 1: for the architects and keepers of our American squid game,
Speaker 1: not the YouTuber who stumbled on a way to help
Speaker 1: some people within the confines of that system and the
Speaker 1: online discount course around. This was kind of interesting and
Speaker 1: if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue,
Speaker 1: become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. All right, guys,
Speaker 1: we'll see you later. As a reminder, we got a
Speaker 1: show remotely coming in from Austin, Texas on Thursday for
Speaker 1: our live show prep on Friday. We're excited to see
Speaker 1: all of you there. Stay tuned for the show. We
Speaker 1: got a great counterpoints for everybody tomorrow morning. We will
Speaker 1: see you all later. Love you guys, See you soon.