Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
Speaker 2: the future of this show.
Speaker 1: This is the only place where you can find honest
Speaker 1: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
Speaker 1: not exist anywhere else.
Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
Speaker 1: We need your help to build the future of independent
Speaker 1: news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, Happy Monday and happy snow Day if you
Speaker 2: are anywhere in the Midwest or Greater Washington, DC area.
Speaker 2: I obviously am doing the show from home. Sager will
Speaker 2: be back with me tomorrow, also probably remote because of
Speaker 2: the amount of snow that we are getting here, but
Speaker 2: we've planned I guess i'd say a special show. We've
Speaker 2: got a bit of a star studded show for you
Speaker 2: this morning. A bunch of special guests can to join
Speaker 2: me to help me out. So we've got Shelby Talcott,
Speaker 2: who's going to join from Semaphore and breakdown what's going
Speaker 2: on within the Trump administration. Mike Johnson was able to
Speaker 2: secure speakership kind of relatively easily. Maybe that was a surprise,
Speaker 2: I don't know. We'll get her insights into what that
Speaker 2: could mean for the Republicans moving forward. Also going to
Speaker 2: have Ryan I think is going to join me at
Speaker 2: some point during the show to jump in for a
Speaker 2: couple of blocks that are particular interest to him. There
Speaker 2: was a just horfect interview from Secretary of State Tony Blanken.
Speaker 2: You know, he was actually confronted by The New York
Speaker 2: Times about his support, whether the world is going to
Speaker 2: see this as a genocide, whether a world is going
Speaker 2: to see him as someone who supported and armed a genocide.
Speaker 2: So pretty interesting and predictably abhorrent comments from him. Love
Speaker 2: to get Ryan to join me on that one. And
Speaker 2: then we also have a bunch of crazy new details
Speaker 2: on this guy who blew himself up inside of a
Speaker 2: cyber truck. There are some emails from his phone or
Speaker 2: some notes from his phone that law enforcement has released.
Speaker 2: There's also a purported email from him that questions have
Speaker 2: been raised about, but that he in that alleged email
Speaker 2: is claiming that he was trying to blow the whistle
Speaker 2: about drone activity with regards to China. So I'm going
Speaker 2: to break down everything that I know as best as
Speaker 2: I know it about that one. I am sorry that
Speaker 2: Sager's not here for this particular block, but when we
Speaker 2: get him in tomorrow we can get us two cents
Speaker 2: on that as well. Also, Elon Musk, not content in
Speaker 2: meddling in US politics or in German politics for that matter,
Speaker 2: is now diving headfirst into UK politics. A lot of
Speaker 2: interesting intrigue there, some strange bedfellows, et cetera. So break
Speaker 2: all of that down for you. Marian Williamson is going
Speaker 2: to join. She is now running for DNC chair and
Speaker 2: big news she's actually secured the number of delegate signatures
Speaker 2: that she needs to be an official candidate. So always
Speaker 2: interesting to hear from Marian. You know, a lot of
Speaker 2: what she was running on domestically, she ended up being
Speaker 2: very prescient, and it really was a crime not just
Speaker 2: to her, that's kind of the least of the problem,
Speaker 2: but to the American people into the Democratic Party that
Speaker 2: they did not take that Democratic primary seriously. In fact,
Speaker 2: not only do they not take it seriously, they actively
Speaker 2: canceled it in a number of states. So this is
Speaker 2: my first time to really deep dive with Marianne about
Speaker 2: what happened and her thoughts and reflections and her recommendations
Speaker 2: for the Democratic Party looking forward. So I'm really looking
Speaker 2: forward to that. We also are going to have environmental
Speaker 2: lawyer and activist Stephen Donziger, who was wrongfully imprisoned in
Speaker 2: really the first nation's first corporate prosecution. He is calling
Speaker 2: for Biden to pardon him. It is much deserved. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Biden has made pretty significant use of his abilities to
Speaker 2: pardon and also to commute sentences, and Stephen Donziger is
Speaker 2: one of the most deserving people you can imagine to
Speaker 2: receive a presidential pardon. So he is going to join
Speaker 2: us to make his case. So jam pack show in
Speaker 2: spite of the fact that it is me and I'm
Speaker 2: here at home with the snow is falling, all of
Speaker 2: that good stuff. So with all that being said, let's
Speaker 2: go and get to shall be Talcott? All right, guys,
Speaker 2: happy to be joined this morning by Shelby Talcott, who
Speaker 2: is national political reporter for Semaphore and does a fabulous
Speaker 2: job covering the Republican side of the aisle in particular,
Speaker 2: and there's certainly almost all the actions really on that
Speaker 2: side at this point. So shell be always great to
Speaker 2: see you. Thank you so much for taking some time out.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, let me go ahead and throw up
Speaker 2: on the screen your latest reporting here about Mike Johnson.
Speaker 2: This was before he actually won the speaker vote. You say,
Speaker 2: Trump auvvers strategic endorsement of Mike Johnson, and that apparently
Speaker 2: ended up really being determinative because you know, I fully
Speaker 2: expected Mike Johnson was going to be the speaker because
Speaker 2: there really wasn't any alternative, but I thought there would
Speaker 2: be a little bit more of a fight. So just
Speaker 2: take our viewers through what happened, what was the timeline,
Speaker 2: and what led this to being like relatively you know,
Speaker 2: easy sledding for Mike Johnson open intended there.
Speaker 4: That was really dorky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So at the end of last year, remember just
Speaker 3: a few weeks ago there was a big to do
Speaker 3: about the spending bill when Donald Trump came in and
Speaker 3: essentially blew it up by saying that he wanted Republicans
Speaker 3: to address the debt ceiling before he took office. Now, Notably,
Speaker 3: what ended up happening was a much smaller bill passed
Speaker 3: without Donald Trump's debt ceiling demand, and that really frustrated
Speaker 3: Donald Trump and a lot of Republican allies to Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: and a lot of them blamed Mike Johnson. And so
Speaker 3: there was sort of this quiet drama brewing over on
Speaker 3: Capitol Hill. And the reason, one of the reasons that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump ended up endorsing Mike Johnson was simply because
Speaker 3: of today, obviously is the election certification. And Trump knew
Speaker 3: that he needed somebody in the House leadership in order
Speaker 3: the House speakership in order to certify the election. And
Speaker 3: so the simplest, easiest option was to back Mike Johnson.
Speaker 3: He has the most support out of all the lawmakers.
Speaker 3: And Donald Trump ended up playing a really important role
Speaker 3: because he was calling lawmakers on Friday ahead of the
Speaker 3: speakership vote, and even after it seemed that Mike Johnson
Speaker 3: did not have the votes, he called those two lawmakers up,
Speaker 3: who ended up switching their votes because Donald Trump called him.
Speaker 3: And so this really was I think a referendum on
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's power in the Republican Party more so than
Speaker 3: it was on how Republicans feel about Mike Johnson.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great point and the most important
Speaker 2: point probably out of this. So what how did like,
Speaker 2: you know, Thomas Massey was saying he was the no,
Speaker 2: Chip Roy was making a lot of noises like he
Speaker 2: was a no. These are two that you know, tend
Speaker 2: to be really ideologically sort of cut from that Tea
Speaker 2: Party mold very committed to lowering the debt and the
Speaker 2: deficit and all of these sorts of things. Did they
Speaker 2: get anything out of this or do they just decide like, Wow,
Speaker 2: there's no real alternative and Trump wants us to go
Speaker 2: in this direction. We got to get this election certified,
Speaker 2: so we're just going to go along to get along.
Speaker 3: Well, everybody that I've talked to said that Mike Johnson
Speaker 3: did not make any specific concessions. What he did do
Speaker 3: before he came out onto the House floor was he
Speaker 3: issued an ex tweet of whatever you call them, the
Speaker 3: these Days hre. He basically said that he was committed
Speaker 3: to all these fiscally responsible initiatives, which was what a
Speaker 3: lot of the Maybes were kind of looking for.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: I think it is really notable that after the vote,
Speaker 3: Chip Roy, along with almost a dozen other Republicans came
Speaker 3: out and said basically that the reason they voted for
Speaker 3: Mike Johnson was because they want Donald Trump's agenda past,
Speaker 3: and it had nothing to do with Mike Johnson himself.
Speaker 3: And in fact, it was despite Mike Johnson's leadership over
Speaker 3: the past year. And so that's really notable. So I
Speaker 3: think it really just came down to the fact that
Speaker 3: Donald Trump was able to convince these Republicans that Mike
Speaker 3: Johnson was the only option in order to get his
Speaker 3: agenda passed and to get the ball rolling into administration.
Speaker 2: So it is January sixth today, we all now know
Speaker 2: very well but likedoral certification is supposed to happen on
Speaker 2: January sixth. I'm out in King George County, Virginia, about
Speaker 2: an hour and a half outside of DC. We've probably
Speaker 2: got about three or four inches on the ground right now.
Speaker 2: The snow is still falling quite steadily. Are these lawmakers
Speaker 2: who I was saying, you know, quite seriously to you earlier.
Speaker 2: Many of them are aged, Many of them have trouble
Speaker 2: getting around the Capitol in the best of times. We
Speaker 2: saw Virginia Fox take a nasty fall last week. Are
Speaker 2: they going to come in and certify this election. How
Speaker 2: is that all going to work?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I'm looking outside my window right now
Speaker 3: in DC and it is exactly the same. It's definitely
Speaker 3: we are snowed in. But despite that, there are no
Speaker 3: plans to push things back. The election is supposed to
Speaker 3: be certified today. That is what Donald Trump wants, that
Speaker 3: is what the rules are, and so I think lawmakers
Speaker 3: are going to do their very best to get into
Speaker 3: town now. I know there was some concern about lawmakers
Speaker 3: who had left town or were told not to leave
Speaker 3: town and might have left town. So it's going to
Speaker 3: be really interesting to see who manages to get in.
Speaker 3: But I do think that every initiative is being made
Speaker 3: in order to make sure that lawmakers are able to enter.
Speaker 1: The Capitol today.
Speaker 4: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: So the two sort of big early agenda items for
Speaker 2: the Trump administration are you mentioned? The one dealing with
Speaker 2: the debt ceiling, and then the extension of the Tax
Speaker 2: Cubs and Cuts and Jobs Act, which was the big
Speaker 2: you know, tax cut from Trump's first administration largely goes
Speaker 2: to the wealthy, has been a big priority and something
Speaker 2: he really significantly campaigned on. They're also talking of wrapping
Speaker 2: in a bunch of other stuff in a large reconciliation bill.
Speaker 2: But let's start with the debt ceiling. That I would
Speaker 2: ask you what might go into that reconciliation bill and
Speaker 2: what you've learned there, What is the plan to deal
Speaker 2: with the debt ceiling? How hard of hardball do you
Speaker 2: think that Democrats are willing to play here?
Speaker 4: How do you see this all turning out?
Speaker 2: Because I think what Janning Ellen said that they would
Speaker 2: technically hit the debt ceiling in the next something like
Speaker 2: ten days, and then they can implement these extraordinary measures
Speaker 2: which pushes it out. So it's not like a hard deadline.
Speaker 2: But basically, once you hit that wall, the clock is
Speaker 2: really ticking to lift or extended or suspended or do
Speaker 2: something with it.
Speaker 3: Remember Donald Trump wanted this address before he took office.
Speaker 3: That clearly seems like it's not going to happen. But
Speaker 3: what Mike Johnson and Republicans did sort of do a
Speaker 3: handshake agreement on is addressing it early on in his administration.
Speaker 4: And so that is the goal.
Speaker 3: But I think it's going to be difficult because, as
Speaker 3: we saw with the spending bill, Democrats do not necessarily
Speaker 3: want to work with Republicans that much, and vice versa.
Speaker 3: The reason the spending bill blew up was because a
Speaker 3: lot of Republicans and Donald Trump felt that there were
Speaker 3: too many concessions made to Democrats. So that in it
Speaker 3: of self is going to be an issue. But I
Speaker 3: also think one of the problems is going to be
Speaker 3: the fact that Donald Trump has come out and endorsed
Speaker 3: this one big, beautiful bill. As Mike Johnson said on Sunday,
Speaker 3: that's going to be difficult because it's going to Mike
Speaker 3: Johnson wants it to include the debt ceiling, he wants
Speaker 3: it to include border he wants it to include tax cuts.
Speaker 3: And passing all of that together and getting all of
Speaker 3: these lawmakers on board with so many different initiatives is
Speaker 3: going to be a challenge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And just to remind people, reconciliation, that's the process
Speaker 2: that the Democrats also use to get a number of
Speaker 2: their priorities through. It basically short circuits the filibuster in
Speaker 2: the Senate, so you can pass if you have the
Speaker 2: majority in the House, which the Republicans very narrowly do,
Speaker 2: and then you have majority in the Senate, you can
Speaker 2: pass significant things through. You know, there's a bunch of
Speaker 2: arcane like minutia about how this process works. It's relatively
Speaker 2: lengthy in terms of, you know, how long it takes
Speaker 2: to put it together and go through this process, and
Speaker 2: then they have to submit it to the parliamentarian parliamentarian
Speaker 2: rules on whether or not these pieces are appropriate to
Speaker 2: go through the reconciliation process. But there's a lot you
Speaker 2: can do through there. What are some of the specific
Speaker 2: priorities that they're looking at through that reconciliation process? And
Speaker 2: then also do you think that some Republicans, like we
Speaker 2: mentioned Thomas Massey, chip Roy, are some of them going
Speaker 2: to have an issue even ideologically with just putting this
Speaker 2: many things together, because that's one of the complaints that
Speaker 2: they've had is, hey, let's pass things in individually rather
Speaker 2: than having these gigantic omnibus style bills where everybody's pet
Speaker 2: project gets piled into you know, one giant bill.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is kind of exactly what Donald Trump and
Speaker 3: Republicans had concerns about with the spending bill was that
Speaker 3: it was so big and had so many initiatives inside
Speaker 3: of it, and they argued that it should be simplified
Speaker 3: and cut down, and that all of these individual efforts
Speaker 3: should be passed individually, and so I think you know
Speaker 3: they're going to try to close the border. That was
Speaker 3: originally going to be plan A when Donald Trump took
Speaker 3: office and lawmakers were considering a two step bill, which
Speaker 3: would have been do the border first and then get
Speaker 3: something like the tax cuts done. And the argument that
Speaker 3: these lawmakers made for that was that it would be
Speaker 3: easier to pass something like the border we get that closed.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump wants the border closed. That's priority number one,
Speaker 3: which most Republicans are on board of. So that would
Speaker 3: be the easier thing to pass compared to the tax cuts.
Speaker 3: And so what this bill theoretically, we don't know. The
Speaker 3: legislation hasn't been made yet. But when Mike Mike Johnson
Speaker 3: has talked to Fox News on Sunday and we've talked
Speaker 3: to other lawmakers, and Donald Trump has voiced his opinion.
Speaker 3: They want to extend the tax cuts and implement some
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump's new initiatives like no tax on tips
Speaker 3: would be included theoretically in this legislation. Closing the border
Speaker 3: would be included in this legislation addressing the debt ceiling.
Speaker 3: So again, this is theoretically a massive package that Donald
Speaker 3: Trump wants passed very soon into his administration.
Speaker 2: Men, go ahead and put this up. This reporting from
Speaker 2: Heather long Up at the Washington Post. She's asking the question,
Speaker 2: you know, assuming that Republicans are going to have pay
Speaker 2: fors for the tax cuts and the no tax on
Speaker 2: tips and the things that they've you know, proposed and
Speaker 2: are committed to, here's some of the things that you
Speaker 2: know might be on the list. Tariffs would be significant
Speaker 2: in order to pay for those days. Repealing clean energy programs.
Speaker 2: We know that's something that Republicans have had their sites
Speaker 2: on for a while. Unauthorized spending. This is like a
Speaker 2: vivac elon Doge thing. They have a theory that certain
Speaker 2: programs which haven't technically had their spending reauthorized, which by
Speaker 2: the way, are things like you know, VA healthcare for
Speaker 2: certain veterans, that they could could slash some programs there,
Speaker 2: or peeling Biden student loan forgiveness, ending the Education Department,
Speaker 2: cutting food stamps, implementing Medicaid work requirements, blocking Medicare obesity treatment.
Speaker 2: I guess that would be blocking like ozembic funding and
Speaker 2: child tax credit for non citizen parents, and cut the
Speaker 2: IRS funding, which actually goes in the opposite direction, because
Speaker 2: funding the IRS helps to collect tax revenue. In any case,
Speaker 2: do you how serious do you think they would be
Speaker 2: about some of these cuts. That's been a big, you know,
Speaker 2: source of interest from Elon and Vivek. Obviously, that's kind
Speaker 2: of like the whole heart of the DOGE initiative. And
Speaker 2: is it critical to them that they do pay for
Speaker 2: the cost of the tax cuts. Last time Trump was
Speaker 2: in office, he was happy to you know, do the
Speaker 2: tax cuts, not pay for them and just massively blow
Speaker 2: up the deficit in spite of Republican rhetoric to the contrary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, I think they're deadly serious. Right.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump implemented DOGE, which is Vivek Ramaswami's and Elon
Speaker 3: Musk's effort to get rid of things in the government
Speaker 3: and get cut spending. So that alone tells you that
Speaker 3: he's serious about this initiative. And lawmakers have been meeting
Speaker 3: with a Vik and Elon Musk on Capitol Hill for
Speaker 3: the last few weeks, and a lot of Republicans believe
Speaker 3: that the US government is bloated and that cuts need
Speaker 3: to be made. And now, obviously I think the big
Speaker 3: thing with tax cuts would be these tariffs, which is
Speaker 3: something that Donald Trump has talked a lot about. He
Speaker 3: says it's going to pay for it all. But there's
Speaker 3: concerns among some Senate Republicans about using tariffs in order
Speaker 3: to pay for these tax cuts, and so that alone,
Speaker 3: I think is going to cause pushback and there's going
Speaker 3: to be a lot of debate in Congress over whether
Speaker 3: Donald Trump and Republicans should use tariff. So not everyone
Speaker 3: is on board with that sort of initiative, which I
Speaker 3: think has been the main thing mentioned and with theoretically,
Speaker 3: you know, have the most cost to it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but a lot.
Speaker 3: Of lawmakers aren't yet convinced that that's the way to go.
Speaker 4: Gotcha.
Speaker 2: Last question I have, Ree Shelby, is like, you know,
Speaker 2: to the best of your sense, how is Trump approaching
Speaker 2: this administration? Because there's one theory out there that like,
Speaker 2: you know, he wanted to avoid jail time and winning
Speaker 2: the presidency was the best way to do that. But
Speaker 2: he's kind of happy to you know, outsource some of
Speaker 2: the ideological project and some of the heavy lifting to
Speaker 2: Elon or Vivague or you know, whatever other lieutenants may
Speaker 2: have ideolo logical interests, How engaged is he in this
Speaker 2: particular administration, How hands on, how micromanaging? What are your
Speaker 2: what's your sense of his headspace and what his top
Speaker 2: priorities will be.
Speaker 3: You know, I've heard those theories also, and you know,
Speaker 3: it makes sense to theorize that, but I actually think
Speaker 3: from my conversations with people inside Trump's orbit, he's very
Speaker 3: hands on in this and essentially everything that he said
Speaker 3: during the campaign is exactly what he wants. You know,
Speaker 3: you think a lot about people say things during the
Speaker 3: campaign and it's to win the primary and then it's
Speaker 3: to win the general election, and who knows if they're
Speaker 3: actually going to implement it. What Donald Trump said on
Speaker 3: the campaign trail is what we are seeing now he
Speaker 3: actually wants to implement. So I think that's really important,
Speaker 3: and he's very hands on. He has met with all
Speaker 3: of the cabinet nominees so far. But he also does
Speaker 3: have these different orbits in his circle, right, like Marco
Speaker 3: Rubio is very different ideologically than Tulca Gabbard and RFK
Speaker 3: Junior has a different ideological background when it comes to
Speaker 3: things like abortion, and so that's where I think it's
Speaker 3: going to be interesting to see and I don't think
Speaker 3: we know yet because Donald Trump hasn't taken office. But
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be really interesting to see
Speaker 3: how those factions work and whether Donald Trump ends up
Speaker 3: addressing things to directly as he has been right with Congress,
Speaker 3: he has been the one calling lotmakers directly, or whether
Speaker 3: he ends up, you know, using Susie Wilds a little
Speaker 3: bit more, or leaning on Jdie Vans or outsourcing some
Speaker 3: of these efforts.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, an interesting point you make there too, because you said,
Speaker 2: you know, he's going to do the things he said
Speaker 2: on the campaign, which has kind of been my assumption
Speaker 2: the whole time. It's like he's saying these things, he's
Speaker 2: running on these things, he won on these things, He's
Speaker 2: going to do them. But that includes also H one B.
Speaker 2: I mean, people act like this shift of his, which
Speaker 2: is genuine shift from twenty twenty to twenty sixteen, like
Speaker 2: it came out of nowhere. But you were covering the
Speaker 2: campaign when he went on the All In podcast and
Speaker 2: was like, yeah, staple the visa on the college degree.
Speaker 2: So he had already made that shift. He'd already you know,
Speaker 2: there's a bunch of issues that he shifted on over
Speaker 2: the years, Crypto being another one of them, just off
Speaker 2: the top of my head, but that had was something
Speaker 2: that he did campaign on. Now, people may not really
Speaker 2: listened to that because most of the rhetoric was about,
Speaker 2: you know, more immigration restrictionists, but he had already made
Speaker 2: that shift and had already sort of provided that goody
Speaker 2: to Silicon Valley many months ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think what's really what's going to also
Speaker 3: be something to keep an eye out for is some
Speaker 3: of the initiatives that Donald Trump wants past, like the visas,
Speaker 3: are things that his own members of his own party
Speaker 3: don't like, and particularly not just members of his own party,
Speaker 3: but some of the loyalists don't like. And so I
Speaker 3: think it's going to be notable because remember, Donald Trump
Speaker 3: talks to everybody, He asks everybody's advice, He is lobbied
Speaker 3: by people constantly, and he sometimes changes his mind due
Speaker 3: to those pressure campaigns. And so it's going to be
Speaker 3: notable because some of the initiatives that Donald Trump wants
Speaker 3: to do are things that his own allies don't like.
Speaker 3: And so where are the pressure campaigns going to come
Speaker 3: in in the next few months and in early in
Speaker 3: his administration? And what is going, how is he going
Speaker 3: to be able to be influenced or or talked out
Speaker 3: of things or talked into things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well he doesn't have to run for a re
Speaker 2: election anymore, so he doesn't have to really care that much.
Speaker 2: And also there's not really dumb, straight track record of
Speaker 2: the base actually standing up to him. They might get
Speaker 2: mad at Elon, they might get mad at Vivik, but
Speaker 2: it's never his fault, right, There's it's always somebody who's
Speaker 2: leading him astray if they feel like he strays.
Speaker 4: From their principles.
Speaker 2: And just to go back to the first thing you
Speaker 2: said after the first question, you know the fact that
Speaker 2: he made those calls and got Mike Johnson really easily
Speaker 2: over the finish line, I think that tells you how
Speaker 2: much power he still has within the Republican Party. And
Speaker 2: you know how much they see their political fortunes individually
Speaker 2: as tied to how you know, favored they are by
Speaker 2: Donald Trump. So, Shelby, thank you so much, great to
Speaker 2: see you, great reporting as always, we'll see again soon.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me my pleasure.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, So it is not just Republican members
Speaker 2: of Congress who are bending to Donald Trump's will We've
Speaker 2: been tracking here a number of instances, in particular of
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos and other tech oligarchs who have decided to
Speaker 2: make nice with Trump, some of whom had been quite
Speaker 2: adversarial to him in the past. And we have a
Speaker 2: new example, perhaps of some of the different behavior that
Speaker 2: is going on with some of those oligarchs. So ed
Speaker 2: Poluster Prize winning cartoonist named Anne tell Nas I might
Speaker 2: be butchering that name. Sorry, guys, just resigned from the
Speaker 2: Washington Post because this cartoon was killed by the editor.
Speaker 2: Let me just pull this up full screen. You could
Speaker 2: see this. This is meant to be Donald Trump, the
Speaker 2: long tie, the protruding belly, et cetera. This is a
Speaker 2: number of tech oligarchs, and this is the guy who's
Speaker 2: that had the La Times.
Speaker 4: Obviously this is Mickey Mouse, but.
Speaker 2: This notably right here, that would be Jeff Bezos and
Speaker 2: all of them bending the knee, offering up cash.
Speaker 4: The La Times.
Speaker 2: Dude is puckering up with the lipstick here to presumably
Speaker 2: kiss Trump's feet or his ass or something like that.
Speaker 2: And Mickey Mouse completely prostrating himself in front of Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: And so apparently this cartoon was killed and This was
Speaker 2: sort of a final straw for this cartoonist who was
Speaker 2: a longtime with the Washington Post and obviously relatively celebrated.
Speaker 4: She actually wrote a.
Speaker 2: Substack explaining why she was leaving, and I'll go ahead
Speaker 2: and pull this up on the screen and read to
Speaker 2: you a little bit of what she had to say.
Speaker 2: Here she says, why I'm quitting the Washington Post. I've
Speaker 2: worked for the Washington Post since two thousand and eight
Speaker 2: as an editorial cartoonist. I've had editorial feedback and productive
Speaker 2: conversations and some differences about cartoons I've submitted for publication.
Speaker 2: But in all that time, I've never had a cartoon
Speaker 2: killed because of who or what I chose to aim
Speaker 2: my pen at until now. The cartoon that was killed
Speaker 2: criticizes the billionaire tech and media chief executives who've been
Speaker 2: doing their best to curry favor with incoming President elect Trump.
Speaker 2: There have been multiple articles recently about these men with
Speaker 2: lucrative government contracts and an interest in eliminating regulations making
Speaker 2: their way tomorrow. Lago, the group in the cartoon included
Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg. Of course, I've met Sam Altman. That's open Ai,
Speaker 2: Patrick Sunshong La Times publisher, Walt Disney Company, Slash, ABC News,
Speaker 2: and Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post owner. She goes on
Speaker 2: to say it's not uncommon for editorial page editors to
Speaker 2: object to visual metaphors within a cartoon if it strikes
Speaker 2: that editor is unclear or is not correctly conveying the
Speaker 2: message intended by the cartoonist. Such editorial criticism was not
Speaker 2: the case regarding this cartoon. To be clear, there have
Speaker 2: been instances where sketches have been rejected or revisions requested,
Speaker 2: but never because of the point of view inherent in
Speaker 2: the cartoons commentary. That is a game changer and dangerous
Speaker 2: for a free press. So let me go ahead and
Speaker 2: read to you what the paper's response was. David Shipley,
Speaker 2: who is the Post opinion editor, said in a statement
Speaker 2: that was provided to CN and then I think other
Speaker 2: outlets as well. Not every editorial judgment is a reflection
Speaker 2: of a malign force. Might decision was guided by the
Speaker 2: fact we had just published a column on the same
Speaker 2: topic as the cartoon had already scheduled another column, this
Speaker 2: one a satire for publication. The only bias was against repetition.
Speaker 2: So that is their side of the story. But of
Speaker 2: course this comes after what sort of kicked off this
Speaker 2: whole conversation about obeying in advance and the efforts of
Speaker 2: tech billionaires to suck up to Donald Trump, all of
Speaker 2: whom have a lot at stake. I mean, Jeff Bezos
Speaker 2: in particular, has massive government contracts and felt that in
Speaker 2: the first Trump administration, and I think probably rightly so,
Speaker 2: that he was punished and denied one particular very lucrative
Speaker 2: government contract. Of course, this man is one of the
Speaker 2: richest men on the planet. I think he's like number
Speaker 2: two right now to Elon Musk, who he's got his
Speaker 2: position solidified within the Trump administration. But in any case,
Speaker 2: he felt that that contract was withhold held. It appears
Speaker 2: he would deny this, I'm sure, but it appeers that
Speaker 2: he very much wants to be on the good side
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump this time around, and so before the
Speaker 2: election he decided to the Washington Post, decided, which he owns,
Speaker 2: of course, to spike an editorial endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Speaker 2: This became a massive, I would say, scandal. It was
Speaker 2: actually devastating to the Washington Post in terms of their business.
Speaker 2: Number of journalists resigned. Washington Post already business was not
Speaker 2: doing well under Jeff Bezos. They had lost huge amount
Speaker 2: of subscribers because they had really bet the farm exclusively
Speaker 2: on sort of anti Donald Trump resistance type editorial direction
Speaker 2: and democracy dies in darkness all of that, and so
Speaker 2: that was the readership that they had cultivated, really was this,
Speaker 2: you know, virulently anti Trump readership. That was their business choice.
Speaker 2: And you know, first of all, when Donald Trump loses
Speaker 2: reelection twenty twenty, that's going to sort of take the
Speaker 2: win out of the sales of that type of content.
Speaker 2: And then now when you had Jeff Bezos saying, oh,
Speaker 2: we're just we don't really do politics and we're just
Speaker 2: gonna stay out of this presidential race and it has
Speaker 2: of course nothing to do with my own personal business interests,
Speaker 2: they lost a flood of subscribers huge I should look
Speaker 2: up the numbers, but it was I believe it was
Speaker 2: like over one hundred thousand. I mean, it was a
Speaker 2: massive blow to their subscriber base. And so what this
Speaker 2: cartoonist is essentially alleging here is that that direction of
Speaker 2: the post that was not an accident, it was not
Speaker 2: a one off, that that's infected all of their coverage
Speaker 2: and all of their auditorial to the extent that she
Speaker 2: experienced something she said she'd never experienced before, which is
Speaker 2: a cartoon getting killed entirely because it was unflattering, not
Speaker 2: just remember to Donald Trump, but also to Jeff Bezos,
Speaker 2: who owns the Washington Post. And this is why, you know,
Speaker 2: billionaires controlling our media is such a problem. You might
Speaker 2: recall Bernie Sanders raising this point in the twenty twenty
Speaker 2: Democratic primary, and he was roundly smeared and criticized and
Speaker 2: scoffed at for suggesting that the billionaire ownership of the
Speaker 2: Washington Post might have something to do with their incredibly
Speaker 2: deceptive at times and outright wrong at times coverage of
Speaker 2: his ideas and his campaign. He was roundly mocked for that.
Speaker 2: I hope everyone can see, whether it's Elon owning Twitter
Speaker 2: or Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post, or these giant
Speaker 2: media conglomerates that own so many different properties and so
Speaker 2: have so many vast business interests, that this is incredibly
Speaker 2: deleterious to democracy and just to getting fair and accurate coverage.
Speaker 2: So this is one more example of that. Another one
Speaker 2: I can throw this one in fairness Tim Cook, a
Speaker 2: CEO of Apple who Trump famously called one time Tim Apple,
Speaker 2: which always still sticks in my head. He is apparently
Speaker 2: the latest tech oligarch to decide he's going to donate
Speaker 2: a million dollars to Trump's inauguration. Now, in fairness to
Speaker 2: Tim Apple, he has long cultivated both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 2: He went out of his way in the first Trump
Speaker 2: term to maintain somewhat of a friendly relationship with Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: But it's still grotesque to see the way that him
Speaker 2: and Sam Altman and a bunch of others have decided
Speaker 2: that they're going to specifically cough up millions of dollars
Speaker 2: to fund the Trump inauguration, which I mean is just basically,
Speaker 2: like you know, it's just a stop right, It's just
Speaker 2: a complete soop way of sucking up to the king
Speaker 2: that they're doing. This is very indicative of where we are.
Speaker 2: You read a little bit of this artult Cole because
Speaker 2: it did have some some interesting notes here in addition
Speaker 2: to Tim Cook says between the lines, Cook a proud
Speaker 2: alabamaa to believes the inauguration is a great American tradition.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm sure that's why you're doing it. Here's him,
Speaker 2: they say in the backstory here. The Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 2: shortly after the election wrote an article headline, how Tim
Speaker 2: Cook cracked the code on working with Trump, noted that
Speaker 2: he had spent years building personal rapport with Trump, so
Speaker 2: time to cash in, I guess on that personal rapport.
Speaker 2: They also note here that other Silicon Valley inauguration donors
Speaker 2: include Amazon, Meta, Uber, open Ai CEO Sam Altman. Wall
Speaker 2: Street's seven figure donors include Goldman, Sachs and Bank of America.
Speaker 2: Crypto Exchanges Crackin and Coinbase also getting in on the action. Toyota, Ford,
Speaker 2: and GM are all also donating at least a million dollars.
Speaker 2: So one of the things with these inauguration funds is
Speaker 2: that direct corporate donations into campaigns are that's illegal. So
Speaker 2: this is a way that corporations can curry favor and
Speaker 2: you know, get their will meet hooks into this administration
Speaker 2: and try to angle for whatever regulatory changes that they want,
Speaker 2: you know, killing different regulations that they find to be
Speaker 2: anathema to their bottom line, or sucking up for procurement
Speaker 2: purposes so that they can be first in line for
Speaker 2: whatever giant government contracts and subsidies that get doled out.
Speaker 2: So this is a way for them to for these
Speaker 2: corporate entities and the billionaire heads of these corporate entities
Speaker 2: to directly curry favor and directly jockey for, you know,
Speaker 2: the favor of the king. And you know, with Trump,
Speaker 2: who's famously like this is. By the way, this is
Speaker 2: not particularly different from other administrations. This goes on under
Speaker 2: democratic administrations. Sure, if you go back and look who
Speaker 2: was giving to the Joe Biden Inaugural Fund, you'll see
Speaker 2: a similar list of characters with similarly self interested motives.
Speaker 2: But Donald Trump is particularly sort of like break In,
Speaker 2: and his ego drives so much of his decision making.
Speaker 2: You know, if you're on his good list, if you're
Speaker 2: saying nice things about him, and he feels that you're
Speaker 2: being loyal to him, he'll shower you with favors and
Speaker 2: gifts if you get on his wrong side, as Jeff
Speaker 2: Bezos did in the first administration. And Sam Altman is
Speaker 2: another one who has given a lot of money to
Speaker 2: Democrats and by the ways, very much on the wrong
Speaker 2: side of Elon Musk, who is the you know, right
Speaker 2: hand to the king. Right now, then you can be
Speaker 2: in for a really rough road. The last thing I'll
Speaker 2: note here and then I have another piece that I
Speaker 2: want to share with you because I just mentioned Elon,
Speaker 2: who is the right hand to the king, and so
Speaker 2: it's not just about curring favor with Trump. It's also
Speaker 2: about curring favor with Elon Musk, who has shown himself
Speaker 2: already to be extraordinarily powerful, you know, beat the Laura
Speaker 2: Loomers in the sort of like og mag of base on.
Speaker 2: This h one be the visa issue, immediately runs Twitter
Speaker 2: right and can use the algorithm to pump up whatever
Speaker 2: content he wants or to you know, make life difficult
Speaker 2: for whoever he wants. Occurring favor with him is also
Speaker 2: really really important. But you know, this is going to
Speaker 2: be a significant thing to track. And the biggest business
Speaker 2: area where there is the most at stake is really
Speaker 2: in this AI development, and that's where Elon comes in.
Speaker 2: That's where Sam Altman comes in, That's where everyone, Mark
Speaker 2: Zuckerberg comes in, every one of the big tech players.
Speaker 2: They want to make sure number one, that they're in
Speaker 2: the top pole position to be the leader in terms
Speaker 2: of AA technology. The amount of money that is flowing
Speaker 2: in that direction is absolutely extraordinarily massive. They're going to
Speaker 2: be government contracts at stake as well. So some of
Speaker 2: this jockeying, A significant amount of this jockeing is specifically
Speaker 2: about AI and H one B fight even is tangential
Speaker 2: and related to that fight to have complete corporate capture
Speaker 2: and unregularly bonanza of AI development without much regard to
Speaker 2: how it's going to impact jobs, workers, safety, or anything else.
Speaker 2: So to get to the Elon part of this more
Speaker 2: perfect union, noted that since Trump won, lo and behold
Speaker 2: all of these advertisers that had fled Twitter because of
Speaker 2: you know, all of the hate content and all of
Speaker 2: the Nazis that are just like on your timeline all
Speaker 2: day long at this point on Twitter. Oh, now that
Speaker 2: they want to suck up to Elon and the Trump administration,
Speaker 2: suddenly those advertisers, blue chip advertisers are coming back.
Speaker 4: Let's take a listen to a little bit of this.
Speaker 6: Not fgo.
Speaker 7: The biggest brands in America boycotted Twitter or what Elon
Speaker 7: Musk now has us calling X after he took over
Speaker 7: the platform and left hate speech run wild. Advertisers fled
Speaker 7: like rats from a sinking ship.
Speaker 8: Disney, Apple and IBM have pulled their ads from the
Speaker 8: social media site to.
Speaker 7: Which my had a pretty clear message, go yourself, Go yourself.
Speaker 7: But suddenly they're scurrying back. Hate speech hasn't disappeared from Twitter,
Speaker 7: so what has changed? Elon Musk is tied to the
Speaker 7: hip with Donald Trump and the corporate giants who wants
Speaker 7: boycotted Twitter from Disney to Comcast wants to get on
Speaker 7: their good side.
Speaker 3: Takeovery, lad.
Speaker 7: Yes, after musk takeover of Twitter, revenue collapsed and the
Speaker 7: company's value has decreased by eighty four percent. In the
Speaker 7: second quarter of twenty twenty four, X brought in only
Speaker 7: one hundred and fourteen million dollars in revenue. That's down
Speaker 7: from six hundred and sixty one million in the same
Speaker 7: quarter of twenty twenty two. Before must took the reins,
Speaker 7: the social media company was in trouble, but Musk anticipated
Speaker 7: a change of heart at the country's largest companies.
Speaker 2: If Trump wins, we'll see you know.
Speaker 4: Probably most most of the boycott left like clockwork.
Speaker 7: As the election neared and predictions of a Trump win grew,
Speaker 7: companies started turning their spendings Figot back on by going
Speaker 7: back to X. Big advertisers are lending the company a
Speaker 7: much needed lifeline.
Speaker 9: But that's not all.
Speaker 7: In an interview with The Financial Times, Lou Pascalis, a
Speaker 7: marketing expert, called advertiser's.
Speaker 10: Return to X a form of political leverage.
Speaker 7: It's a calculated move to appease a guy who said,
Speaker 7: there's a large graveyard filled with my enemies, and who's
Speaker 7: so close to Trump. He started calling himself the first Buddy,
Speaker 7: following Trump around and grooving to the YMCA with the
Speaker 7: soon to be president whenever he gets the chance.
Speaker 2: So you get the picture there. I mean, this is
Speaker 2: the tech equivalent of you. Remember, in the first Trump administration,
Speaker 2: the easiest way to curry favor with Trump was anytime
Speaker 2: a foreign dignitary or anyone came into town, had to
Speaker 2: stay at the Trump Hotel right there in DC. Now
Speaker 2: the Trump Hotel is not the Trump Hotel anymore. However,
Speaker 2: another way you can directly curry favor with Donald Trump is, Oh,
Speaker 2: he has his own crypto coin, so you could you
Speaker 2: could purchase that, or if you want to get in
Speaker 2: good with a quote unquote first Buddy and not run
Speaker 2: a foul of Elon Musk, who, as I said before,
Speaker 2: has already proven himself to be extremely powerful within this administration,
Speaker 2: while your company probably is going to want to buy
Speaker 2: some advertisements on X not because you think it's you know,
Speaker 2: directly beneficial to your brand, but because you want to
Speaker 2: make sure you're in a position to benefit from all
Speaker 2: of those government goodies. So that is the game that's
Speaker 2: being played right now. It is extraordinarily high stakes. And
Speaker 2: you know, to state the obvious, it's example number three
Speaker 2: thousand of how much the government is set up to
Speaker 2: serve these oligarchs and these massive corporate interests over you,
Speaker 2: Like you don't get an audience with the King or
Speaker 2: the first Budy. You don't get to, you know, throw
Speaker 2: millions of dollars in advertising onto their favored platform in
Speaker 2: order to get your little pet projects approved and get
Speaker 2: in good with the people who actually count. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I know this can become sort of like par for
Speaker 2: the course in America where money is king. But this
Speaker 2: is how you end up with a situation where the
Speaker 2: people's voices really just don't count, where when money is speech,
Speaker 2: you know, the people who have the most money, they're
Speaker 2: gonna have the most speech, they're gonna have the most influence,
Speaker 2: they're going to have the most say, and you know,
Speaker 2: take a look at the way our government is run
Speaker 2: and who's run for, and take a look at how
Speaker 2: these people are behaving as the Trump administration comes into office,
Speaker 2: and you know, there's your answer of what this government
Speaker 2: is ultimately all about. The last thing I'll say on
Speaker 2: this one before moving on to the next topic we
Speaker 2: have here, which is a lot of extraordinary details that
Speaker 2: would do my best to unpack about this whole cyber
Speaker 2: truck dude killing himself and blowing up the truck, et cetera.
Speaker 2: The last thing I'll say about this is I think
Speaker 2: it was Michael Tracy who was appointing the signings without
Speaker 2: a lot of good points. I feel like I signed
Speaker 2: him a lot. But you know, Trump in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: part of his political power was he positioned himself as
Speaker 2: being sort of uncorruptible. He's like, I'm a rich guy.
Speaker 2: I don't need these people's money. I understand, in fact,
Speaker 2: how this game was played because I played it. I
Speaker 2: know this game better than anyone else, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to drain the swamp. Okay, I'm not saying money in
Speaker 2: politics and the corrupting influence is new under Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: That would be a lie. Both parties all in on
Speaker 4: big money.
Speaker 2: But we are seeing something that is even more brazen
Speaker 2: under Donald Trump and has been taken to even more
Speaker 2: extraordinary lengths Musk in particular giving a quarter of a
Speaker 2: billion dollars and possibly being directly responsible for Trump getting
Speaker 2: back in the White House and then being handled handed
Speaker 2: this extraordinarily vast amount of power. You know, he already
Speaker 2: got what he wanted out of that whole you know,
Speaker 2: spending deal that had been negotiate, and then he blew
Speaker 2: it up. One piece that I'm sure was really important
Speaker 2: to him was it had some limits on high tech
Speaker 2: investment in China that won against his interests because he
Speaker 2: wants to do some tesla Ai thing in China, gets
Speaker 2: that stripped down, gets his way before the Trump administration
Speaker 2: is even in office. H one b's you know how
Speaker 2: we feel about the program Personally, I think guestworker programs
Speaker 2: are inherently exploitative. I agree with Bernie Sanders, who wants to,
Speaker 2: you know, really take an aggressive approach of reform to
Speaker 2: the Hwin and B program. That is my position as well.
Speaker 2: But however we feel about the program, Trump completely flipped
Speaker 2: on a dime in order to please Elon David Sachs
Speaker 2: Mark Andresen his new tech oligarch buddies. That happened during
Speaker 2: the campaign, but obviously the fight broke out into public
Speaker 2: just recently and Elon won hands down, unequivocally. He didn't
Speaker 2: get nothing for that quarter of a billion dollars. He
Speaker 2: got so much. I mean, the return on it is
Speaker 2: going to be extraordinary. It already has been. So you know,
Speaker 2: there's a new level of sort of oligarch brazenness that
Speaker 2: I don't think we should accept. And you know how
Speaker 2: we feel about Trump, what side of the political aisle
Speaker 2: you are on, et cetera. This is about the principle
Speaker 2: of this is not This is supposed to be a democracy,
Speaker 2: like people's voices are supposed to matter in this whole situation,
Speaker 2: and instead you've got oligarchs just out and out brazenly
Speaker 2: running the show. So that's where we.
Speaker 4: Are, all right.
Speaker 2: So guys, you will recall on New Year's Day we
Speaker 2: had two separate violent incidents. One the truck attacker in
Speaker 2: New Orleans, just horrific carnage there, and the second was
Speaker 2: this guy who pulls up in a cyber truck in
Speaker 2: front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas and then
Speaker 2: apparently shoots himself in the head according to law enforcement,
Speaker 2: and blows up the truck with himself inside. Thankfully, the
Speaker 2: only minor injury injuries as far as I know, as
Speaker 2: a result of that attack. Afterwards, there were images of
Speaker 2: what was in the truck truck bed. It was all
Speaker 2: these like gas canisters and a bunch of large fireworks
Speaker 2: borders that apparently is what he used to detonate himself
Speaker 2: the truck, et CETERA weird thing to do, especially as
Speaker 2: we learn more details. You know, the initial image of
Speaker 2: the sky in a cyber truck outside of a Trump hotel,
Speaker 2: You're like, oh, this must be somebody who hates Donald Trump. No,
Speaker 2: turns out according to his political background. First of all,
Speaker 2: he's a Green Beret and was haad the you know,
Speaker 2: sort of like macho, more right leaning pro Trump political
Speaker 2: ideology that you might expect from someone who's driving a
Speaker 2: cyber truck and is a Green Beret. So that's weird.
Speaker 2: So what was this all about? So there have been
Speaker 2: some interesting I'm just going to go through what we've
Speaker 2: learned as best we can, and you guys can draw
Speaker 2: your own conclusions or still be as confused as I
Speaker 2: am at this moment. But we've had two major developments.
Speaker 2: One is law enforcement uncovered what they said were some
Speaker 2: notes on his phone. They expressed, uh, sort of standard
Speaker 2: right wing political ideology. I'm going to read those to
Speaker 2: you in a moment, saying that DC needs to be
Speaker 2: purged of Democrats and you know, the people need to
Speaker 2: take charge and effectively I'm doing this to call attention
Speaker 2: to what's going on in our country.
Speaker 4: Is sort of like general political rhetoric.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I'll show you those that law enforcement
Speaker 2: sis was on his phone. But then there was also
Speaker 2: this email that he allegedly sent to a guy named
Speaker 2: Sam Shoemate, who is Intel officer and I wasn't familiar
Speaker 2: with him, but apparently, you know, he's somewhat well known.
Speaker 2: Shoemate goes to Sean Ryan, who is a large former
Speaker 2: CIA large podcaster who you know, and they had this
Speaker 2: conversation about this alleged email, which purports to indicate that
Speaker 2: Liveelsberger blew himself up in truck to try to call
Speaker 2: attention and blow the whistle on the fact that these
Speaker 2: drones that have been cited are Chinese made and that
Speaker 2: they are so dangerous to our national security that it's
Speaker 2: effectively I think he calls it, quote unquote game over.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna read the whole email alleged email to you
Speaker 2: so you know exactly what he said, and that they
Speaker 2: use like gravity displacement to move in the way that
Speaker 2: they do. This is something that you know, the sort
Speaker 2: of like UFO community that they've theorized. This is total
Speaker 2: sci fi stuff that is being alleged here. Now there
Speaker 2: are people who are really calling into question whether this
Speaker 2: is a real thing. So I want you to have
Speaker 2: a lot of skepticism as we go into this, but
Speaker 2: I just wanted to share what is out there so
Speaker 2: that you can make your own determinations about whether or
Speaker 2: not you think this is legit. Let me go ahead
Speaker 2: and pull this up and we'll listen to the beginning
Speaker 2: of this end the setup. Samshoe mate here in the
Speaker 2: plaid shirt talking to Sean Ryan.
Speaker 11: I get a well, it started off as comments. So
Speaker 11: when you have a big Instagram account, you're going to
Speaker 11: miss a lot of messages because people message you know'll
Speaker 11: go to hidden messages and everything else. You miss a
Speaker 11: lot of stuff. Well, I kept seeing this comment on
Speaker 11: recent posts that I put in there and it was
Speaker 11: from this this burner account and said, hey, check your DMS.
Speaker 11: Check your DMS, check your DM. So I go in
Speaker 11: there and try to find it. There's no message from
Speaker 11: this guy hadn't come through or whatever. And then he
Speaker 11: messages again once that message was opened up, and I said, hey,
Speaker 11: your previous messages haven't come through. What what do you
Speaker 11: want to tell me? And he said, what I'm going
Speaker 11: to send you Now these are literally his words. What
Speaker 11: I'm going to send you is going to change the
Speaker 11: course of humanity. That was his phrase, change the course
Speaker 11: of humanity. Okay, a little bit dramatic. I get these
Speaker 11: messages all the time. People have this big story they
Speaker 11: want to tell, they want to expose their command, whatever it's.
Speaker 11: I take everything with a grain of salt until I
Speaker 11: have evidence improved. So this guy is insistent. He tells me.
Speaker 11: He tells me that he is a eighteen zulu who
Speaker 11: I've spoken to before, and he really needs to get
Speaker 11: this stuff to me. And then he talks about you.
Speaker 11: He says, I need you to get me in contact
Speaker 11: with Sean Ryan. I'm like, dude, I don't know Sean Ryan.
Speaker 11: I'm not that big. But he's insistent that I get
Speaker 11: him diverted to media sources, says, go to Fox News
Speaker 11: whatever else. I said, all right, tell me what you got.
Speaker 11: So I give him my proton email account, give him
Speaker 11: my signal signal number, and he reaches out immediately, and
Speaker 11: I'm going to read this initial message for you, because
Speaker 11: this doesn't have names or anything else on it, but
Speaker 11: this was his message on Sunday. He reached out and said,
Speaker 11: like I said, Sunday, this last Sunday, he said, sending
Speaker 11: with a VPN active on Wi Fi only, do not
Speaker 11: message me. I will send out updates via both signal
Speaker 11: and email, but trus me, you're going to want to
Speaker 11: be involved. Well, first of all, no, I don't. I
Speaker 11: didn't want to be involved anyways. And then so I didn't.
Speaker 11: I didn't message. I responded back to his original Instagram
Speaker 11: Instagram message and I said, hey, I got your message
Speaker 11: on proton mail and he said, cool, delete this, So
Speaker 11: I deleted it. That's how I ended up getting this
Speaker 11: message on Tuesday. So the message that this this right here,
Speaker 11: this manifesto, if you want to call it, that came
Speaker 11: in on Tuesday. And when I started reading this, my
Speaker 11: initial take was okay, this is off the deep end.
Speaker 11: It's bonkers. I can't validate or verify any of the
Speaker 11: stuff in this manifesto. And I told him that in
Speaker 11: a subsequent email, and I'll read that to you later.
Speaker 11: My response to him, and once again, my response to
Speaker 11: him elicited, hey, get me in contact with Sean Ryan
Speaker 11: Fox News, and even said Pete Hegseth, give me in
Speaker 11: contact with heg Seth. And I'm like, dude, I don't
Speaker 11: have the incoming Secretary of Defense's phone number.
Speaker 9: Sorry, bro.
Speaker 2: So that was kind of the setup. And then he
Speaker 2: goes on to read the actual email. So I'll go
Speaker 2: ahead and pull this up. And it's a little bit lengthy,
Speaker 2: so I don't know if I want to read all
Speaker 2: of it, but I will read a portion of it
Speaker 2: to you. But effectively, like I said, he's raising allegations
Speaker 2: that there we and the Chinese have this gravity propulsion technology,
Speaker 2: that China has submarines parked off our coasts and is
Speaker 2: sending drones up, and that this is like, you know,
Speaker 2: a massive national security risk quote unquote game over in
Speaker 2: terms of national security. And he also raises allegations about
Speaker 2: war crimes that he was familiar with in Afghanistan. One
Speaker 2: of the things that's kind of weird about the war
Speaker 2: crimes allegations that actually was like, there were war crimes
Speaker 2: alleged at that time in Afghanistan, but it was publicly reported,
Speaker 2: so it wasn't like this was you know, super super
Speaker 2: like secret knowledge. In any case, let me just read
Speaker 2: you a little bit of this, So he allegedly writes,
Speaker 2: in case I do not make it to my decision
Speaker 2: point or onto the Mexico border, I am sending this now.
Speaker 2: Please do not release this until January first, and keep
Speaker 2: my identity private until then, and remem of the story
Speaker 2: is here that he allegedly sent this the day before
Speaker 2: his he exploded himself in the cyber truck outside of
Speaker 2: the Trump Hotel on January first. First off, I am
Speaker 2: not under duress or hostile influencer control. My first car
Speaker 2: was a two thousand and six black Ford Mustang V
Speaker 2: six For verification, so he's saying, like, this is how
Speaker 2: improving that I am? Who I say I am, that
Speaker 2: was my first car.
Speaker 4: You can go and check.
Speaker 2: Okay, what we've been seeing with drones is the operational
Speaker 2: use of gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft by most recently
Speaker 2: China in the East Coast, but throughout history the US
Speaker 2: only we in China have this capability are op send
Speaker 2: location for the activity is in the box below. By
Speaker 2: the way, people looked up where those coordinates were and
Speaker 2: it was a fifty one. He goes on to say,
Speaker 2: China's been launching them from the Atlantic from submarines for years,
Speaker 2: but this activity recently is picked up as of now
Speaker 2: is just a show of force. They're using it similar
Speaker 2: to how they used the balloon for sig INT and ISR,
Speaker 2: which are also part of the integrated commsystem. There are
Speaker 2: dozens of those balloons in the air at any given time.
Speaker 2: This the so what is because of the speed and
Speaker 2: stealth of these unmanned aircraft, they are the most dangerous
Speaker 2: threat to national security that's ever existed. They basically have
Speaker 2: an unlimited payload capacity and can park it over the
Speaker 2: White House if they wanted. Its checkmate, checkmate, not gameover.
Speaker 2: Sorry I missed quoted that earlier. Us G needs to
Speaker 2: give the history of this, how we are employing it, weaponizing,
Speaker 2: how China is employing them, and what the way forward is.
Speaker 2: China's poised to attack anywhere in the East Coast. I've
Speaker 2: been followed for over a week now from likely Homeland
Speaker 2: or FBI, and they are looking to move on me
Speaker 2: and are unlikely going to let me cross into Mexico
Speaker 2: but won't because they know I am armed and I
Speaker 2: have a massive I think they pronounce this a vbay.
Speaker 2: It's like a vehicle based ied. That would be the
Speaker 2: cyber truck that he blew up. I've been trying to
Speaker 2: maintain a very visible profile and have kept my phone
Speaker 2: and they are definitely digitally tracking me. Then he goes
Speaker 2: on to talk about this these air strikes in Nimero's province,
Speaker 2: Afghanistan twenty nineteen. Then he concludes, you need to elevate
Speaker 2: this to the media so we avoid a world war
Speaker 2: because this is a mutually assured destruction situation. So that
Speaker 2: is the alleged email. Okay, a lot of people have
Speaker 2: raised a lot of questions about this. This is a
Speaker 2: random dude. I don't know who this person is on Twitter,
Speaker 2: but he seemed to raise some pretty good questions and
Speaker 2: that you know that we're getting a lot of traction
Speaker 2: and I just want to provide you with all the information.
Speaker 2: So here is what random guy on Twitter says about
Speaker 2: this email. He says that it doesn't fit into any
Speaker 2: plausible explanation of the Las Vegas bombing, and he goes
Speaker 2: into a long thread. One of the things that he
Speaker 2: looks into is, you know, the the proof of the
Speaker 2: beginning where the guy's like, Okay, I had this particular
Speaker 2: kind of Mustang that was my first car. There's no
Speaker 2: evidence that that is actually the case, that that actually
Speaker 2: was Matthew Livelsberger's first car.
Speaker 4: So that's a question mark.
Speaker 2: Also, the email itself was in if you look closely,
Speaker 2: it wasn't in the like original email form. It was
Speaker 2: in a text editor. You could tell because you could
Speaker 2: see the cursor. You could see you know how when
Speaker 2: you're typing in a text editor, there's like words that
Speaker 2: are misspelled that are underlined. So like the things that
Speaker 2: he abbreviated and used this like technical jargon, those things
Speaker 2: have those underlines from the text editor.
Speaker 4: Now my understanding.
Speaker 2: Sam Schuemate says, oh, well, I put in the text
Speaker 2: editor so that I could redact names that needed to
Speaker 2: be redacted. But people have asked him for okay, well,
Speaker 2: you know this is pretty extraordinary. So can you show us,
Speaker 2: like opening the email, can you give us some proof
Speaker 2: that you didn't just like spin this up in a
Speaker 2: text editor, And as far as I know, that proof
Speaker 2: hasn't been straight, hasn't been forthcoming.
Speaker 4: So there's that.
Speaker 2: This random dude on Twitter also says that by all accounts,
Speaker 2: Matthew Livelsburg was not in an unacknowledged special access program
Speaker 2: related to the drones that he speaks of in line
Speaker 2: and according to members of the team. He says that
Speaker 2: really reads like something out of Anti China MSM talking points,
Speaker 2: which is true as well. So there's some questions about
Speaker 2: this email where it is, what it came from. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a number of possibilities here, right, the email is real, it,
Speaker 2: you know, and he lost his mind and you know,
Speaker 2: was having like a psychotic break and this email is
Speaker 2: the product of that. It's possible the emails fake. It's
Speaker 2: possible the email is real, and he really does have
Speaker 2: some knowledge of these things and was trying to blow
Speaker 2: the whistle. So I don't know, I don't know. That's
Speaker 2: what we got.
Speaker 4: On that front.
Speaker 2: I mentioned before, there were other notes that law enforcement
Speaker 2: reportedly recovered from his phone that had more of just
Speaker 2: like a generic right wing extremist tone to them, and
Speaker 2: you know then the motive for him blowing himself up
Speaker 2: in this bizarre fashion is that he wants to call
Speaker 2: attention to what's going on in DC and how the
Speaker 2: DC needs to be purged of Democrats. Let me read
Speaker 2: you those so you can get a flavor for those
Speaker 2: as well. He says, two different notes, Fellow service members, veterans,
Speaker 2: and all Americans time to wake up being led by
Speaker 2: weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves.
Speaker 2: Military invets move on DC starting now. Malicious facilitate and
Speaker 2: augment this activity. Occupy every major road along FED buildings
Speaker 2: and the campus of FED Buildings by the hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 2: Lock the highways around down with semis right with everybody
Speaker 2: gets in hold until the purge is complete. Try peaceful
Speaker 2: means first, but be prepared to fight to get the
Speaker 2: Dems out of the federal government and military by any
Speaker 2: means necessary. They all must go in. A hard reset
Speaker 2: must occur for our country to avoid collapse. Here's another
Speaker 2: like lengthier one, but the vibe is basically the same,
Speaker 2: and he says, consider this last sunset of twenty four
Speaker 2: and my actions the end of our sickness and a
Speaker 2: new chapter of health for our people. Rally around the
Speaker 2: Trump must Kennedy and ride this wave to the highest
Speaker 2: hegemony for all Americans. We are second to no One. So,
Speaker 2: you know, these two pieces, they don't really particularly fit
Speaker 2: together because they, you know, offer two completely different motives.
Speaker 2: One is just like, we have to take the country
Speaker 2: back and these Democrats are evil and we need to
Speaker 2: back Trump and so let's surround DC. And I'm doing
Speaker 2: this to draw attention to this cause of surrounding DC
Speaker 2: and purging the Democrats. Other, obviously, is blowing the whistle
Speaker 2: about these purported drones in this Chinese technology. So that's
Speaker 2: what we know there. The other weird thing that came
Speaker 2: out is that he was part of a reality TV show,
Speaker 2: which is just kind of strange. So here's the clip
Speaker 2: that emerged with regards to that.
Speaker 10: It's a reality show that pits teams of elite soldiers
Speaker 10: from around the world against each other.
Speaker 7: Matt and Tim from the US Army's Special Forces, better
Speaker 7: known as the Green Brats.
Speaker 10: Matthew Libelsberger and his partner Tim Kelly, both Green Berets,
Speaker 10: appeared on The Ultimate Soldier Challenge twelve years ago. On
Speaker 10: the History Channel, not only one. It wasn't even close.
Speaker 6: You know, television, they always try to make it a
Speaker 6: little bit more competitive, but we swept the whole entire show.
Speaker 10: When he appeared on the show, Libbelsburger used a shortened
Speaker 10: version of his name, Matt Berg, So it took Tim
Speaker 10: Kelly a while to put two and two together.
Speaker 6: And then I saw Matt Berg with a older photo
Speaker 6: of him, and I was.
Speaker 10: Like, oh, no, dude, I know that guy.
Speaker 6: And then it just like tore my heart out because
Speaker 6: he was a really great Green Beret.
Speaker 10: And what was he like.
Speaker 6: He was charming, he was talented, he was personable, he
Speaker 6: was kind, he was all the things that you would
Speaker 6: expect from a Green Beret.
Speaker 10: At one point during the show, Libbelsburger lost his cool
Speaker 10: in the ninety plus degree heat.
Speaker 11: I hate his ownest man, How did you take the doll?
Speaker 12: Right now?
Speaker 10: Tim Kelly says he hadn't heard from Libbelsburger for a
Speaker 10: few years.
Speaker 6: It just categorically does not make sense from everything that
Speaker 6: I have heard. He was universally valued by his team,
Speaker 6: by his peers.
Speaker 10: I don't understand.
Speaker 6: It doesn't make sense, and it is just horrifically heartbreaking.
Speaker 4: So just other layers of weirdness to this one.
Speaker 2: He was in a reality show, so there you go whatever,
Speaker 2: for whatever that's worth. We're also learning more about his
Speaker 2: past and personal history. Obviously, he was a Green Beret,
Speaker 2: had served overseas, had struggled with some PTSD and depression.
Speaker 2: He also, I think had just gone through a breakup
Speaker 2: and was going through a divorce, so there were some
Speaker 2: some personal issues at play there as well. Reportedly his
Speaker 2: wife leaving him because she alleged that he had had
Speaker 2: an affair and that had just occurred, so that could
Speaker 2: certainly have played into his mental state. Another couple of
Speaker 2: weird things worth mentioning here. So both of them, both
Speaker 2: Matthew Livelsburger and the guy who did the truck attack
Speaker 2: in New Orleans, both of them were had served at
Speaker 2: what formerly was known as Fort Bragg now it's known
Speaker 2: as Fort Liberty. There have been other extremists who have
Speaker 2: come out of that particular military base. Of course, it's
Speaker 2: a large military base. Many thousands of people go through there,
Speaker 2: So there is that. And then the last piece that
Speaker 2: I will share with you about him is apparently when
Speaker 2: he had sought mental health care. He was deemed not
Speaker 2: a risk diagnosed with depression, so again this all speaks
Speaker 2: to his mental state. He had visited the military behavioral
Speaker 2: health program multiple times in recent most months, was diagnosed
Speaker 2: with depression, but deemed not to be a risk to
Speaker 2: harm himself or others. So that is everything we know
Speaker 2: at this point. It's a weird story. I mean, very possible.
Speaker 2: This dude just you know, going through a lot after
Speaker 2: his military serve. Well, I mean he still was serving.
Speaker 2: He still was an active Green Beret, So went through
Speaker 2: a lot with that, going through some personal things, lost
Speaker 2: it and decided to take his own life in this
Speaker 2: incredibly spectacular and warrifying fashion. But many, many questions still
Speaker 2: remain here. So guys, good news. Ryan Grimm was able
Speaker 2: to join me and actually made it to the studio,
Speaker 2: so also got to check in and make sure things
Speaker 2: are looking good there Ryan, How is it out there?
Speaker 13: Everything is here, Nothing was stolen over the break, so
Speaker 13: I haven't done a full inventory, but I.
Speaker 4: Think we're pretty good, all right, Good to know.
Speaker 13: The books are all here, the baseball's yeah, we're said, excellent, excellent.
Speaker 2: So I wanted to wanted Ryan to join us for
Speaker 2: this story, which is really interesting. So Elon Musk not
Speaker 2: content with effectively buying the US government and getting to
Speaker 2: operate it towards his ends, not content with jumping in
Speaker 2: also to the German political system and backing the AfD
Speaker 2: and writing it and off ed and trying to really
Speaker 2: you know, put his imprint on that government. Has also
Speaker 2: now jumped massively into UK politics. And all of this
Speaker 2: also comes at an interesting time because he had gotten
Speaker 2: very much crosswise with the sort of MAGA faithful on this.
Speaker 4: H one B issue.
Speaker 2: So I think that's highly relevant to his choice of
Speaker 2: you know, jumping headfirst into UK politics. So let me
Speaker 2: just read a little bit of this Axios report and
Speaker 2: then get some of Ryan's reaction here, so says Musk
Speaker 2: rocks UK politics with the tax on the prime minister
Speaker 2: and support for the far right. So you guys might
Speaker 2: recall relatively recently, actually Kure Starmer, whos had a Labor party,
Speaker 2: he is the new prime Minister the UK disgusted with
Speaker 2: the Tories, really kicked them out. Was not so much
Speaker 2: a sort of endorsement of Cure Starmer or Labor, but
Speaker 2: a rejection of their opponents. In any case, Kure Starmer
Speaker 2: is the current Prime Minister. Elon Musk hijacked British politics
Speaker 2: this week with the stream of at least sixty posts
Speaker 2: on Twitter since Tuesday, attacking Prime Minister Cure Starmer, defending
Speaker 2: an anti Islam campaigner that would be Tommy Robinson, and
Speaker 2: endorsing the far right Reform Party. Why it matters, they say.
Speaker 2: The right hand man to America's next president has gone
Speaker 2: after the leaders of several of its closest allies in
Speaker 2: recent months, but his fight with the British government is
Speaker 2: turning into the nastiest yet. While Musk's ex microphone was
Speaker 2: enough to send Westminster into a frenzy, there's been intense
Speaker 2: speculation he'll also open his checkbook for Reform and It's
Speaker 2: Trump aligned leader Nigel Faraj must told Axios' Micalini had
Speaker 2: yet to donate, wasn't sure if it would be legal.
Speaker 2: Musk labeled here, Starmer here. Stormtrooper shared meme claiming the
Speaker 2: PM was more concerned about policing social media than about rape.
Speaker 2: That was part of a barrage of tweets attacking British
Speaker 2: political and legal establishment for failing to adequately investigate alleged
Speaker 2: child sex abuse rings, one most famously in the town
Speaker 2: of Roschjale, in which dozens of young girls were raped
Speaker 2: between two thousand and four to twenty thirteen. So, just
Speaker 2: to sort of TLDR this, there's a few things going
Speaker 2: on here. First of all, Musk posing labor, you know,
Speaker 2: for his own ideological interests.
Speaker 4: That's one thing.
Speaker 2: The other thing is what they're really using as a
Speaker 2: cudgel against Starmer is this decades old, truly horrifying, massive
Speaker 2: scandal where there were huge numbers of what they called
Speaker 2: grooming gangs raping young girls. And for a combination of
Speaker 2: a lot of social factors, but one of them being
Speaker 2: most of the men who were involved in these grooming
Speaker 2: gangs who were raping these young girls, most of them
Speaker 2: were of Pakistani origin, and there was the sense of like, oh,
Speaker 2: we have to be culturally sensitive, which of course the
Speaker 2: right seas on. And there was also a sense from
Speaker 2: police of like, oh, well, these girls, they're really sort
Speaker 2: of asking for it, you know. They didn't see them
Speaker 2: so much as victims, which was another piece of this.
Speaker 2: In any case, this is a decade's old story. Keir
Speaker 2: Starmer was tangentially involved in this at the time, and
Speaker 2: so that's the big thing that they're using right now
Speaker 2: as the cudgel against him. So, Ryan, your thoughts on
Speaker 2: kind of this overall story and what musk is up
Speaker 2: to you here?
Speaker 13: So you're right, there are a couple of things going
Speaker 13: on here. One is that this was a horrific scandal.
Speaker 13: It's also one that was investigated, you know, pretty seriously
Speaker 13: over the last couple of decades. In twenty fourteen, ALEXISJ
Speaker 13: produced a report that shocked the world. It made, you know,
Speaker 13: mainstream news across the globe, including I think there were
Speaker 13: like half a dozen or a dozen stories in the
Speaker 13: New York Times about this scandal that led to additional
Speaker 13: calls for inquiries, which Alexis J also led and others
Speaker 13: others led. There was a national report that she put
Speaker 13: out in twenty twenty two that laid out a bunch
Speaker 13: of recommendations in order to make it so you would
Speaker 13: have practices in place that would protect victims, that wouldn't
Speaker 13: allow them to be overlooked, that wouldn't allow these cultural
Speaker 13: concerns to get in the way of of breaking up
Speaker 13: these these gangs. She has said what she is frustrated
Speaker 13: about is that the Conservative government that was in place
Speaker 13: at the time, you know, has not implemented those fast enough.
Speaker 13: But the other thing that's going on that I think
Speaker 13: on a kind of meta level is even more interesting,
Speaker 13: is that, you know, throughout the first Trump administration you
Speaker 13: had resistance liberals. Every time something kind of new came up,
Speaker 13: they thought it was a distraction from the thing that
Speaker 13: they ought to be paying attention to. You remember all
Speaker 13: that discourse during the Trump the first Trump turned the
Speaker 13: distraction and distraction stay focused. The elements of MAGA do
Speaker 13: the exact same thing if you if you remember, over
Speaker 13: the last four years, you would even have major storms
Speaker 13: described as syops. This is a syop. They don't want
Speaker 13: you focusing on, you know, the real thing, you know,
Speaker 13: whatever it's counter Bud's laptop or whatever. They want you
Speaker 13: focusing on this, on this hurricane, or on this other event.
Speaker 13: Like they actual news events that were occurring were being
Speaker 13: described as psyops to distract the public. This one literally
Speaker 13: is that it is a concerted effort to manufacture a
Speaker 13: news event where there really isn't one, you know, you know,
Speaker 13: should the recommendations of the j Report from twenty twenty
Speaker 13: two be implemented by the Labor government now that the
Speaker 13: Conservative government didn't implement them. Yes, sure they should. Yeah,
Speaker 13: but the idea that all of a sudden there should
Speaker 13: be this global attention focused on this is very suspicious.
Speaker 13: Like why all of a sudden do they want to
Speaker 13: talk about this? And your point, I think is the
Speaker 13: obvious one. There was this gigantic H one B civil
Speaker 13: war going on which was bloodying up the Maga coalition
Speaker 13: and not going particularly well from musk even though he
Speaker 13: was you know, he had the power to win it right,
Speaker 13: it was kind of ripping the coalition apart. Of course,
Speaker 13: you get this kind of Adrian Dittman nonsense for like
Speaker 13: a day or so, and then and then it goes
Speaker 13: over to here. People in South Asia who are watching
Speaker 13: this are like, this sounds like something that India got,
Speaker 13: you know, asked Elon to kind of gin up because
Speaker 13: it's all about Pakistanis in the UK. That might maybe
Speaker 13: he got the idea from them, who knows, but somehow
Speaker 13: somebody had the idea of like, you know, what we
Speaker 13: need to really talk about is these these gang raping
Speaker 13: Pakistanis in the UK. To get every get the band
Speaker 13: back together, get everybody agreeing. After we had this difficult,
Speaker 13: you know, debate over over h one b and it
Speaker 13: to me, it it's it's an incredible example of and
Speaker 13: here we are talking.
Speaker 1: About it right on our show.
Speaker 4: Because he's on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, I mean because exactly when the richest man
Speaker 2: in the world gets involved. You know, the UK right
Speaker 2: now is debating they have better limits on money and
Speaker 2: politics than we do. But they're debating putting additional caps
Speaker 2: on contributions to deal specifically with Elon Musk and to
Speaker 2: avoid you know, having the same fate befall them as
Speaker 2: to learn some of the lessons of what we're seeing here.
Speaker 2: You know, we must put in a quarter of a
Speaker 2: billion dollars in Trump's campaign and now has a tremendous
Speaker 2: power over our federal government. And so they're seeing that
Speaker 2: and saying maybe we need to learn something from that.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think your point is a really
Speaker 2: apt one because also the choice of vision. Again, I
Speaker 2: don't want to diminish that this is horrifying story. I
Speaker 2: remember reading about it back in twenty fourteen. The number
Speaker 2: of girls affected, the fact that there were so few prosecutions.
Speaker 2: In fact, in a few instances it was these girls,
Speaker 2: young girls. I'm talking as young as eleven, who were
Speaker 2: a few of them prosecuted themselves, as like sex workers
Speaker 2: are for dislorderly contact, absolutely abhorrent and insane.
Speaker 4: But it also has a lot.
Speaker 2: Of echoes with the way that immigration restrictionists in the
Speaker 2: US will use legitimate, accurate, undocumented immigrant crimes to paint
Speaker 2: a portrait of an entire migrant community as criminal, even
Speaker 2: as we know the overall statistics are that both documented
Speaker 2: and undocumented immigrants are more law abiding than US citizens.
Speaker 2: And there's actually similar dynamic here in the UK. You
Speaker 2: and I had both looked up the statistics. You actually
Speaker 2: have white Britons who are more overrepresented in terms of
Speaker 2: prosecutions for child sex abuse than Asians or South Asians.
Speaker 2: So it can it's also an attempt to paint a
Speaker 2: deceptive story that this is the source of all child
Speaker 2: sex abuse, to paint an entire community in this way,
Speaker 2: and for him to get back in good of like see,
Speaker 2: I do actually hate immigrants, and thistle h one b
Speaker 2: thing like, let's just put that to the side. I
Speaker 2: also have antipathy towards brown migrants that come into countries.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing here is he's also taken the side
Speaker 2: of this dude that I don't even know if he
Speaker 2: would object to being called an islamophobe.
Speaker 4: Tommy Robinson, who's like this.
Speaker 2: You know, originally like soccer rul again criminally, he has
Speaker 2: been in prison for any number of things. Currently he's
Speaker 2: in prison because he lied about this fifteen year old
Speaker 2: Syrian migrant who a video had gone viral of this
Speaker 2: kid getting beaten up and like sort of fake waterboarded,
Speaker 2: you know, this like simulation of torture at his school,
Speaker 2: and Robinson jumps in to say, oh, well, this kid
Speaker 2: isn't so innocent, and to try to link him to
Speaker 2: these sort of grooming and sexual assault allegations totally unfounded,
Speaker 2: completely libelists found to be so required by the courts
Speaker 2: to stop doing it. And keeping in mind the UK
Speaker 2: does not have free speech protections in the same day
Speaker 2: way that we would, but I think even here this
Speaker 2: would have been potentially a legal issue. He continues, puts
Speaker 2: on a film reiterating the same libelist claims, and the
Speaker 2: court issues an injunction. He actually, you know, admits to
Speaker 2: being in contempt of court. That's what he gets thrown
Speaker 2: in prison for. So Musk has also taken up the
Speaker 2: cause of this guy Tommy Robinson. Hears you know one
Speaker 2: of the things that he posted. Why is Tommy Robinson
Speaker 2: in solitary confinement prison, which he is, by the way,
Speaker 2: he's in. He's isolated for reportedly his own safety, for
Speaker 2: telling the truth. He should be freed and those who
Speaker 2: covered up this travesty should take his place in that cell.
Speaker 2: I mean, every part of that is just basically like
Speaker 2: false and fictional. But part of what's interesting here is
Speaker 2: Nigel Frage, the head of the right wing Reform Party,
Speaker 2: and Musk is now backing the Reform Party. Frage has
Speaker 2: long distanced himself and condemned Tommy Robinson like this is
Speaker 2: too far even for him, and so that's now created
Speaker 2: this other rift between Musk and Pharrage, and Musk is
Speaker 2: now coming out and saying, I don't know Nigel.
Speaker 4: Farrage effectively because.
Speaker 2: He's not on board with Tommy Robinson, this like thug
Speaker 2: anti Muslim hooligan. I don't know that he's the right
Speaker 2: leader for reform. So he's jumped in with that one
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 13: Right, And I almost feel bad for the people who
Speaker 13: are kind of earnestly, you know, following Musk's version of this,
Speaker 13: because if that's all you're following, and he keeps repeating
Speaker 13: to his audience, do not read the mainstream press, do
Speaker 13: not read any news other than what you get on X.
Speaker 13: The only way to stay informed is to, you know,
Speaker 13: listen to what I say and listen to what I
Speaker 13: elevate here on X. And if that's what you listen to,
Speaker 13: then you actually do think that this guy, Tommy Robinson,
Speaker 13: you know, stood up for these rape victims and exposed
Speaker 13: this this scandal of these grooming gangs, and the entire establishment,
Speaker 13: which is you know, some linkage between Epstein and QAnon
Speaker 13: was supportive of these underground uh, you know, gangs, and
Speaker 13: so therefore they locked the whistleblower, truth teller, Tommy Tommy
Speaker 13: Robinson up. And if that's what you think, and that's
Speaker 13: what you've been told, then of course you know free
Speaker 13: It's what a travesty, what an outrage if you actually
Speaker 13: look at what happened, like you said, oh, he made
Speaker 13: a very specific allegation against a very specific person.
Speaker 4: The child, by the way, the child.
Speaker 13: The court found that to be false ordered him to
Speaker 13: stop saying that false thing, at which point he could
Speaker 13: have just moved on and said other false things about
Speaker 13: other people. But he insisted on continuing to defame and
Speaker 13: libel this child and destroying this kid's life and committing
Speaker 13: contempt at court, and so they then he winds up. Now,
Speaker 13: then you could debate how a society ought to handle
Speaker 13: something like that.
Speaker 2: Is an eighteen month persons on ince too long? Okay,
Speaker 2: we could have that discussion, right.
Speaker 13: But the and in the US would probably mostly just
Speaker 13: be monetary penalties, although at some point if there's continuous
Speaker 13: contempt of court and its rulings, like even in civil
Speaker 13: cases you do then as you know, we're going to
Speaker 13: talk to Stephen Donziger, you know, who spent some who
Speaker 13: spent significant amount of time because of these contempt you know,
Speaker 13: specifically because of contempt of court.
Speaker 4: So but.
Speaker 13: It's just, you know, so I'm increasingly curious to see
Speaker 13: where this goes because if if Musk is really going
Speaker 13: to treat Twitter X, I'm now willing to call it
Speaker 13: X because it is really radically different than it used
Speaker 13: to be as a weapon in his in his culture war,
Speaker 13: which is a political war, which is a war for
Speaker 13: you know, his his own commercial interests. If he's going
Speaker 13: to continue using it as a weapon for regime change
Speaker 13: around around the world. How are other governments going to
Speaker 13: respond because he's you know, there are rules about you
Speaker 13: know what, foreign interference in domestic politics. You know, Georgia
Speaker 13: for instance, just banned you know, foreign interference and it's
Speaker 13: in it's politics. In the US, you know, freaked out
Speaker 13: because it said all all of our n g o
Speaker 13: s are going to be illegal. Now you know, we
Speaker 13: have our you know, foreig registration rules, other countries have
Speaker 13: that you're you're hearing now in Europe, calls that they
Speaker 13: just need to shut Twitter down, which would you know,
Speaker 13: be unfortunate because that would be an attack you know
Speaker 13: what it well, you know what it was was a
Speaker 13: place where people could you know, express themselves and it's
Speaker 13: still a way to reach an international audience. But if
Speaker 13: he is just going to use it as this weapon,
Speaker 13: I think governments are aren't really going to tolerate that,
Speaker 13: but maybe they don't have enough power to stop it.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we do have one example, which is
Speaker 2: in Brazil, there was a sort of you know, game
Speaker 2: of chicken or a clashing of titans between the Brazilian government,
Speaker 2: Brazilian court system, and Musk and Twitter and ultimately, you know,
Speaker 2: the Brazilian court system sort of held strong and Musc
Speaker 2: ultimately back down and.
Speaker 4: Did what they wanted him to do.
Speaker 2: So you do without getting into all the specifics, because
Speaker 2: I don't even remember all the specifics of what that
Speaker 2: particular example was about, but you do have this one
Speaker 2: example of a country saying like, no, we have our laws,
Speaker 2: you have to buy by them or you don't get
Speaker 2: to play in the sandbox. And Brazil has a very
Speaker 2: large I mean it's a very large country and has
Speaker 2: a large number of users on that platform.
Speaker 4: So that was specific.
Speaker 2: The last piece that I think is interesting here too
Speaker 2: is Owen Jones Head shared this and I actually wasn't
Speaker 2: really aware of this, but Elon Musk, at least according
Speaker 2: to the polling, is really unpopular in with the British public.
Speaker 2: I mean we're talking about sixty four percent unfavorable, only
Speaker 2: eighteen percent favorable. So you know, here in the US,
Speaker 2: we just have this instinct to like venerate billionaires and
Speaker 2: know he you know, made these great companies and whatever.
Speaker 2: We just like have this knee jerk reaction that people
Speaker 2: have to kind of be pulled back from. But in
Speaker 2: you know, with the British public. They have a lot
Speaker 2: of antipathy towards him already, which is part of why
Speaker 2: I think Nigel Frog felt comfortable, even though he would
Speaker 2: love to get Elon Musk's money and Elon musk support,
Speaker 2: et cetera, why he felt comfortable immediately coming out and
Speaker 2: saying no, I don't support Tommy Robinson. I've long distanced
Speaker 2: myself from him, and I'm not going to change that.
Speaker 2: That principle on behalf of you know, Elon Musk or
Speaker 2: anyone else.
Speaker 13: One thing I would add also, for whatever it's worth,
Speaker 13: solitary confinement is torture and I don't I don't think.
Speaker 13: I don't think anybody who's in prison, concluding Tommy Robinson
Speaker 13: should should be subjected to to solitary confine it. But
Speaker 13: you're right, it'll be interesting to see, you know, how much,
Speaker 13: how much if he has as much pull here as
Speaker 13: he's as he does elsewhere. You know, Europe is in
Speaker 13: general a pretty weak place right now. Yeah, they rely
Speaker 13: on him for Starlink for the Ukrainians like so that
Speaker 13: like he's got that leverage over them start there. You know,
Speaker 13: Starlink more broadly gives him leverage his relationship with Trump
Speaker 13: gives him leverage, so whether they'll actually pull the trigger.
Speaker 13: But you have seen a number of politicians throughout Europe
Speaker 13: saying we need to nip this in the butt and
Speaker 13: we need to just ban Twitter. But then you know,
Speaker 13: you can have VPNs and get around it.
Speaker 4: Sure, but it does that does just not use it.
Speaker 13: As a weapon for his own political ends. Well, the
Speaker 13: other thing it as a free speech.
Speaker 2: The other thing you took note of immediately is he
Speaker 2: tweeted out this thing of like, we're going to change
Speaker 2: the algorithm to focus on copy stuff, and it's like.
Speaker 13: Oh, like grooming gangs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, like grooming gangs. But also, oh, now that
Speaker 2: your guys into the in the White House, suddenly you're
Speaker 2: going to focus on Oh, everything's actually great and the
Speaker 2: US is.
Speaker 4: A wonderful place. Isn't that convenient? That timing?
Speaker 13: It's it's it's so dystopian. Yes, uh, now, now we're
Speaker 13: coming into office. Enough of all this complaining. Let's let's think.
Speaker 13: Let's let's think and.
Speaker 4: Share positive guys.
Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, except for my campaigns that I'm going
Speaker 13: to launch around you know, whatever I decide is interesting.
Speaker 4: In the moment, correct, Yeah, And you know. This is
Speaker 4: why listen.
Speaker 2: He's such an important figure to follow, whether you want
Speaker 2: to or not, because of the amount of power that
Speaker 2: he wields through combination of his wealth, his proximity to power,
Speaker 2: his official position in the Trump administration, and then his
Speaker 2: willingness to use xs this weapon. So we'll continue to
Speaker 2: follow where this goes next because it could be very interesting.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, So I am thrilled to be joined
Speaker 2: this morning by Marian Williamson, who is not only a
Speaker 2: former presidential candidate who was right about many things and
Speaker 2: maybe the party would be in the country would be
Speaker 2: in a much better shape if they had listened to her,
Speaker 2: but also is a best selling author and just all
Speaker 2: around a fantastic person and thinker who I always enjoy
Speaker 2: picking their brain.
Speaker 4: Great to see Marian, Oh.
Speaker 5: It's always good to see you. Thank you, Crystal.
Speaker 4: All right, so you are doing something.
Speaker 2: It's bold. Let's just say it's bold. You've decided to
Speaker 2: run for DNC chair. And I'll just put this New
Speaker 2: York Times reporting on the DNC chair race up, which
Speaker 2: of course scarcely mentions you in it and describes you
Speaker 2: as a quote perennial presidential candidate which is very dismissive.
Speaker 2: They outline a race between Ken Martin and Ben Wickler, who.
Speaker 4: Are two state party chairs.
Speaker 2: Just give us a little bit of a sense, because
Speaker 2: this is as in the weeds as it gets, these
Speaker 2: very insular races for party chair. Give us a sense
Speaker 2: of the contours of that race and why you specifically
Speaker 2: decided to jump into it.
Speaker 5: Well, of course, after my own experience, I was curious
Speaker 5: how the DNC actually runs. You can't get more into
Speaker 5: the weeds of the effects of the behavior of the
Speaker 5: DNC than running for president. I saw the corruption. I
Speaker 5: saw the way a apparently small group of people felt
Speaker 5: they had the right to decide, for instance, to cancel
Speaker 5: a primary, which is so ludicrous and has delivered us
Speaker 5: to where we are now and what we're about to
Speaker 5: experience for the next four years. So of course I
Speaker 5: was curious, and I was curious if the DNC would
Speaker 5: be looking in the mirror. I was curious about where
Speaker 5: they would go from here. I was just observing now.
Speaker 5: Ken Martin, in my team's my campaigns interactions, was always
Speaker 5: a gentleman. He was ethical, he was honorable, have only
Speaker 5: the greatest things to say. But I also saw other
Speaker 5: behavior Sacha as we're going to win by kicking people
Speaker 5: off the ballots, etc. The more I absorb observed in
Speaker 5: terms of the conversation going on in the race, just
Speaker 5: through a cursory look at the media, etc. I realized
Speaker 5: nothing is Nobody is suggesting a fundamental change here. Nobody
Speaker 5: is addressing the deeper, the deeper levels of malfunction. That's
Speaker 5: the thing when it comes to the DNC, we're not
Speaker 5: talking about dysfunctional. When you're losing Pennsylvania, you're losing Michigan,
Speaker 5: you're losing Wisconsin, you're losing Ohio, all these red states.
Speaker 5: This is beyond dysfunction. This is into malfunction. That's when
Speaker 5: I decided to jump in.
Speaker 4: Go ahead and Mary and finish your thought.
Speaker 5: That was just the beginning. What's really been amazing is
Speaker 5: what I have discovered since. Because in order to get
Speaker 5: up to those forty signatures, in order to be a
Speaker 5: qualified candidate, you have to get on the phone and
Speaker 5: you're calling, you're calling members of the DNC. There's one group,
Speaker 5: the one that has invisibilized and mocked and character assassinated
Speaker 5: me from the beginning, who clearly took this idea, do
Speaker 5: not answer her calls, do not return her texts, etc.
Speaker 5: But the people I would get on the phone, what
Speaker 5: I learned is how this organization operates. The vast majority
Speaker 5: of the members of the DNC are deeply disempowered. The
Speaker 5: DNC itself runs, it's governance model is everything we say
Speaker 5: we don't want this country to be. It's a small
Speaker 5: group of elite, very opaque. By the way, you might
Speaker 5: have heard Zogby talk about the fact he's on the
Speaker 5: Budget Committee and he doesn't know the numbers. A small
Speaker 5: group of elites who take the same view within the
Speaker 5: organization that I felt as a candidate. Look, we got this.
Speaker 5: We're the grown ups here. We know how this is done.
Speaker 5: We don't need your input. Really, let me repeat. You
Speaker 5: lost Michigan, you lost Pennsylvania, you lost Wisconsin. You're losing
Speaker 5: the country and Donald Trump is about to be inaugurated
Speaker 5: on January twentieth. Meanwhile, there are incredible people who are
Speaker 5: members of the DNC. There is so much talent there,
Speaker 5: there's so much passion for everything you and I believe in,
Speaker 5: so much of a real devotion to progressive governance. So
Speaker 5: the first thing you have to do is return the
Speaker 5: DNC itself, if it ever was, I think I don't know,
Speaker 5: but we put it now into alignment with the principles
Speaker 5: that we say right now basically, what this is about
Speaker 5: as a consultancy class, whether it is SDK, Nickerbocker or
Speaker 5: Precision Strategies or whatever, this is about. They're having money.
Speaker 5: This is about they are multimillion dollar contracts, which are
Speaker 5: the governing principle. Their profits are the governing principle of
Speaker 5: the DNC. It is a failed business model, It is
Speaker 5: a failed messaging model. It is a failed organizing model.
Speaker 5: And you need ahead of the DNC who's going to
Speaker 5: go in there know what's really happening, which I believe
Speaker 5: the majority of DNC members do know. But a leader
Speaker 5: of the chairman of the DNC who goes in and
Speaker 5: sets those things straight to the greatest possible.
Speaker 4: Extent, it's truly a racket.
Speaker 5: And yeah it is.
Speaker 2: I know that you've actually obtained a significant milestone. You
Speaker 2: were able to get the what forty signatures required to
Speaker 2: be a quote unquote official candidate, which means what you participate,
Speaker 2: get to participate in all the forums, get to officially
Speaker 2: make your case.
Speaker 4: Is that what that effectively means.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we had forty two by the time we said
Speaker 5: we got it. We got so yes. Later this afternoon,
Speaker 5: I'll be on the labor form. Tomorrow, I'll be on
Speaker 5: the forum having to do with the state parties. It's
Speaker 5: very exciting. Uh, there's one in Detroit, there are two online,
Speaker 5: is another one in Washington, d C. So I'm the
Speaker 5: candidate for those who know that incremental change is not
Speaker 5: going to do it. More bells and whistles is not
Speaker 5: going to do it. You've got to recognize the corruption
Speaker 5: that's in the bones of this thing. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 5: that's the that's the truth we're telling here.
Speaker 2: You know, my fear is but right after election day,
Speaker 2: you know, there seemed to be some genuine shock, possible
Speaker 2: soul searching going on even among Democratic elites, and that
Speaker 2: seems to have really faded. You have people like Jim
Speaker 2: cleiber and saying like everyone just needs to chill. It's fine,
Speaker 2: Kim Jefferies put back in with no dissent, as you know,
Speaker 2: leader in the House. Even the contours of this DNC
Speaker 2: chair race, I mean, I know, you know the odds
Speaker 2: you're up against. Right, You've got the New or Times
Speaker 2: effectively through their credit writing, like not a lot of
Speaker 2: soul searching that we're seeing from Democratic elites, at least
Speaker 2: visa this DNC party chair race. And you have comments
Speaker 2: being made like these from Chuck Schumer that effectively indicate like, well,
Speaker 2: Democrats don't have a reality problem, they're just we need
Speaker 2: to tweak the messaging a little bit because people aren't
Speaker 2: really understanding just how absolutely incredible we are. Let's just
Speaker 2: go to take a listen to a little bit from
Speaker 2: Senator Chuck Schumer, and then I just love to hear
Speaker 2: from you where you think Democrats went astray and what
Speaker 2: you're hearing in terms of the level of soul searching
Speaker 2: or lack thereof.
Speaker 9: All too often, Kristen, we talked about the mechanics of
Speaker 9: the legislation and the details of the legislation, and we
Speaker 9: really didn't show the kind of empathy and concern to
Speaker 9: average or show enough of it to average working families
Speaker 9: who didn't realize how much we had done and how
Speaker 9: much we care for them. So what we're going to
Speaker 9: do is spend a lot of time talking to working
Speaker 9: families showing them how much we care about them.
Speaker 2: So you know, again this frames this as purely a
Speaker 2: messaging issue. And look, I do think Democrats have a
Speaker 2: messaging issue too. They had a president of the United States.
Speaker 2: They have a president of the United States who is
Speaker 2: really unable to articulate much of anything about much of anything.
Speaker 2: But to purely look at this as we just need to,
Speaker 2: you know, fine tune the messaging and really tell working
Speaker 2: class people just how amazing we've been for them, I
Speaker 2: think is incredibly condescending and just utterly misses the point.
Speaker 2: Of course, lets all of the people that you're talking about,
Speaker 2: the consultant class and the elites that let us down
Speaker 2: this disastrous path as a country, and certainly for the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party, lets them completely off the hook.
Speaker 5: Well, there's a lot here, including the fact that what
Speaker 5: we're consulting firms on K Street in Washington, d C
Speaker 5: know about how to talk to people in Kansas even
Speaker 5: if they wanted to, or know how to talk to
Speaker 5: people in Nebraska, or know how to talk to people
Speaker 5: in North Dakota. Meanwhile, once again going back to the
Speaker 5: membership of the DNC, you have members who do know,
Speaker 5: who have been working in those states for sometimes decades,
Speaker 5: and they are their voices are nullified. They're given very
Speaker 5: little in terms of money. It's they're just always begging
Speaker 5: for some help from the DNC. Now, the greatest deviation
Speaker 5: is not on the matter of messaging. It's on the
Speaker 5: matter of values and principles and what does progressive governance mean?
Speaker 5: What are the values of the Democratic Party. But he's
Speaker 5: not entirely wrong, because the Republicans are very good about
Speaker 5: tending to their base. They talk to people all year
Speaker 5: in a non condescending way, and they keep people informed.
Speaker 5: Now unfortunately for people like us, Yeah, they keep them informed,
Speaker 5: but always through the lens of you know, the Republican playbook.
Speaker 5: We what the Democrats have done, and I think to
Speaker 5: some extent that's what Senators what was referring to, basically
Speaker 5: just show up every two or four years, always with
Speaker 5: a gimme attitude, give us your votes, give us your money.
Speaker 5: Then you're supposed to just assume that we're going off
Speaker 5: into our wood paneled rooms and we're doing what's best
Speaker 5: for you, right, and then we'll be back in two
Speaker 5: years to talk to you. I do feel to some
Speaker 5: extent the Republicans don't walk their talk, but the Democrats
Speaker 5: haven't talked their walk. One of the reasons I want
Speaker 5: to be chair. Is that you know, if the Democrats
Speaker 5: have the White House, you have the largest megaphone in
Speaker 5: the world. If you have the Speaker of the House,
Speaker 5: you have a large megaphone. If you're in control of
Speaker 5: the Senate. We're not going to have any of those
Speaker 5: things over the next session. So the Democrat the DNC
Speaker 5: has to be the megaphone. That's why it's not enough,
Speaker 5: even the best of them who are talking about traditional
Speaker 5: political activism we have. We've got to become a prophetic voice,
Speaker 5: which is what traditionally the Democratic Party was, someone who
Speaker 5: is out there and creating an entire communications network and
Speaker 5: infrastructure to be talking to people.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 5: And a lot of that has to do with unleashing
Speaker 5: the power of those in these states who know how
Speaker 5: to talk to people in their states, including the fact
Speaker 5: if you're going to have a consulting firm working in Kansas,
Speaker 5: it should be a consulting firm in Kansas. It is
Speaker 5: the money when you were saying it's a racket, it's
Speaker 5: the money that's kept right here. Earlier, you and you
Speaker 5: were talking about O'Malley talking about how and David Pluff
Speaker 5: saying we need more money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, let me actually I have that clip.
Speaker 2: Let me just play that clip so people know, no, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it is extraordinary. So David Pluff, you know, we
Speaker 2: we covered on this. I'm sure you watch the big
Speaker 2: pozse of interview with the Kamala Harris senior staff. We're like,
Speaker 2: we were perfect, we did everything right.
Speaker 5: People just don't understand.
Speaker 2: And one of the only critique, effectively, I don't want
Speaker 2: to you know, I don't want to overly generalize, but
Speaker 2: basically the only critique was David Pluff saying like we
Speaker 2: should have been a little more corrupt the way the
Speaker 2: Republicans were. Like, that's your takeaway in any case, that's
Speaker 2: what we need to this. Oh, Maley gets asked this
Speaker 2: question about, hey, do you agree with David Pluff on
Speaker 2: this from Densaki over on MSNBC. Let's go ahead and
Speaker 2: take a listen to a bit of that exchange.
Speaker 12: Let me ask you about something that David Pluff said
Speaker 12: on pot Save America someone you and I both know.
Speaker 12: He said, quote, we have to stop playing a different
Speaker 12: game as it relates to super packs than Republicans. They
Speaker 12: coordinate more than weight we do.
Speaker 4: I'm just sick and tired.
Speaker 12: Of it, and he was talking about kind of legal
Speaker 12: advisors saying to the DNC and others, you can't coordinate
Speaker 12: at all with super packs while Republicans are doing that.
Speaker 10: What do you make of that?
Speaker 8: I think there's to that observation, and that's what I've
Speaker 8: heard as well talking to people, both lawyers and also
Speaker 8: people within the d NC. We need to make greater
Speaker 8: use of the flexibilities.
Speaker 13: Not to do things illegally, but we.
Speaker 8: Need to be making greater use of the flexibilities in
Speaker 8: the law, especially for moving money around, spending spending dollars
Speaker 8: appropriately on things so that say hockey Jeffries and his
Speaker 8: congressional candidates don't have to spend that money on If
Speaker 8: we can do with there's a party. So we need
Speaker 8: to make better use of all of the flexibilities that
Speaker 8: are in the law, because lord knows, we're getting pounded
Speaker 8: because of some of them. We need to make sure
Speaker 8: that we are playing by this new and ever developing
Speaker 8: set of rules. But that's a promising our principles. We
Speaker 8: believe in the republic ORNs above the law, but we
Speaker 8: do have greater flexibilities than we're currently using.
Speaker 4: Use more flexibility in a law. Marian, what do you think?
Speaker 5: Yeah, what these people are doing including a pluff or
Speaker 5: trying to deflect from what really happened here. Remember, Hillary
Speaker 5: Clinton had a lot more money than Donald Trump did,
Speaker 5: and we all know the stories about the absurd expenditure
Speaker 5: expenditures of the Harris campaign. The real story here is
Speaker 5: not that they need more money. The real story is
Speaker 5: about what they spend their money on. The real story
Speaker 5: is about these consultant firms. It's a consultancy class, about
Speaker 5: their money, about their contracts that they get, by the way,
Speaker 5: whether the Democrats are in power or not. Meanwhile, you know,
Speaker 5: I had a meeting with some people from the state
Speaker 5: parties and they had sent me a document about the
Speaker 5: money that the DNC was going to be giving to
Speaker 5: the state parties. And I looked at it, Crystal, and
Speaker 5: I thought, maybe I'm reading the wrong numbers. And then
Speaker 5: I read it again. And then I picked up my
Speaker 5: phone and I used a calculator, and then I read
Speaker 5: it again. Maybe my calculator is broken. It was like
Speaker 5: the budget of a small nonprofit. We're talking about having
Speaker 5: to save our democracy here, and this is a consultancy class.
Speaker 5: They're talking about getting more money. They want to get
Speaker 5: more money, they want to do more with super packs,
Speaker 5: by the way, and in order to feed themselves. Because
Speaker 5: they're not feeding, they're not feeding the states. And not
Speaker 5: only that, they're not even feeding themselves in a way.
Speaker 5: Once again, I'm going to say it again, these people
Speaker 5: lost Michigan, these people lost Pennsylvania, these people lost Wisconsin,
Speaker 5: these people lost Ohio. The entire template, the entire paradigm
Speaker 5: of how things work and the governance of the DNC
Speaker 5: needs to change. That is what I believe a lot
Speaker 5: of the members of the DNC do realize. These are
Speaker 5: some very good people and some very smart people. Nobody's
Speaker 5: dumb here. Everybody gets what's happened.
Speaker 10: Now.
Speaker 5: The issue is are we willing to demand the changes?
Speaker 5: And this is the first time, this race, is the
Speaker 5: first time in a long time that the membership of
Speaker 5: the DNC does have the opportunity to say, you know what,
Speaker 5: we're going in another direction. Yours is a failed to template,
Speaker 5: and if we continue with that without addressing the deeper problems,
Speaker 5: there won't be any real change. If we want a
Speaker 5: different government in the House, if we want a different
Speaker 5: government in the White House in four years, we're going
Speaker 5: to have to be a different Democratic Party. You know
Speaker 5: Trump is a political sorcerer. They we have to meet
Speaker 5: the level of of his frequency psychologically and emotionally with
Speaker 5: the American people, and you're certainly not going to do
Speaker 5: that with people with fake tattoos on TikTok and languaging.
Speaker 5: You know, when people were telling me some of the
Speaker 5: ways that the people in their state were offended by
Speaker 5: the verbiage, so that when Senator Schumer says, we didn't
Speaker 5: talk to them enough, even when you talk to them,
Speaker 5: you talk to them in ways that have nothing to
Speaker 5: do with that single mother who works at Walton. She's
Speaker 5: got two kids. Walmart, she's got two kids. This whole
Speaker 5: thing needs to needs to change. And we have the membership,
Speaker 5: I'm absolutely sure of it. You have so much energy
Speaker 5: and talent to be unleashed within the membership of the DNC.
Speaker 5: But that elite establishment, which doesn't even report the numbers
Speaker 5: of where that money is going, but purports to be
Speaker 5: the ones who know and the ones who know how
Speaker 5: to do this, that entire template of governance needs to change.
Speaker 5: And I'll return to it.
Speaker 2: Well, in a sane world, many people within the party
Speaker 2: party elites would be looking to you and saying, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of the domestic message that you were running on.
Speaker 4: You were absolutely right.
Speaker 2: Some of them are even admitting now you know, you
Speaker 2: know that Bernie Sanders that class based analysis in the party,
Speaker 2: maybe they were onto something. They'd be admitting that, they'd
Speaker 2: be admitting how wrong they were to block you and
Speaker 2: others and really, you know, just completely cancel the primary
Speaker 2: process in certain instances, and they'd be saying, you know,
Speaker 2: these are the type of voices that we need in
Speaker 2: the party elevated so that we can dramatically turn this ship. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: we aren't seeing that reckoning within the elites. But you know,
Speaker 2: I pray that you're correct in your analysis and that
Speaker 2: there's that desire for change among some of the rank
Speaker 2: and file in the DNC. Mariyan tell people were they
Speaker 2: can follow you and substack your podcast and then thank you, yeah.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you. Well, people go and certainly look
Speaker 5: at my substack at Maryanwilliamson dot substack dot com and
Speaker 5: the website for the race now that I've got those
Speaker 5: now that we've got those signatures, the website will be
Speaker 5: up today or tomorrow. But people can certainly follow me
Speaker 5: on social media. I'm out there and at this point
Speaker 5: I think we have we have the critical mass of
Speaker 5: people who understand what the problem is. Now we need
Speaker 5: a critical mass of people who have the spine and
Speaker 5: the courage to say we're going to change this, because
Speaker 5: the assault on our democracy is simply too great to tolerate.
Speaker 4: Very well said Mary, and great to see you. Thank
Speaker 4: you so much, My pleasure